


^y^:»N^*^ 



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Plan of an Institution 



DEVOTED TO 



LIBERAL EDUCATION. 



" Isfs Gotteswerk, so wird's bestehen^ 
Isfs Menschenwerk, wircTs untergeJieji. 



NEW YORK: 

S. W. Green's Son, Printer, Electrotyper and Binder, 

74 & 76 BEEKMAN STREET. 

1881. 



NOTE. 

The following plan was sketched to indicate the possibilities of a large 
•school devoted to liberal education and located in one of our large cities. 
The plan is applicable to any large graded academy or private school, situ- 
ated where five hundred or more pupils can be obtained, who live within a 
convenient distance of the school building. With slight modifications it will 
apply to our public graded schools in large villages and cities. The sketch 
is prftited at the request and at the expense of friends. 



ANALYSIS. 



PAGE 

Objects of the Institution 9 

Liberal Education 10 

I. On the acqtdsition of knowledge incident to 

Self-preservation II 

Duties to family. , . 12 

Duties to society and the state I2 

Duties to God 12 

II. On the training of the intellect. I2 

Perceptive faculty = . . . 12 

Imaginative faculty. , 13 

Reasoning faculty o 14 

Intuitive faculty 15 

Memory and the association of ideas 15 

Order of the development of the faculties 18 

(i) Perception, (2) Imagination, (3) Reason, (4) Intuition. 18 

Conclusions on intellectual acquisition and training 21 

III. On the formation of the pe^-manent, — the character and the soul... . . 22 

The teacher's position 22 

Necessary conditions 23 

The cultivation of the emotional 23 

Music and devotional exercises 24 

Influence of motives 24 

The ' ' marking system" 25 

Character and reputation 26 

All growth, all commands and all law from within 27 

The course of study and the teacher the creative forces. . 27 

Christ the creative force of history 28 

The undue development of the intellect 29 

Influence of intellectualism in spiritual things 29 

God, not " law," the source of all order and development 29 



6 Analysis. 



PAGE 

Conclusions on liberal education 30 

Relative value of the three ends of education 30 

Influence of the conclusions upon a course of study 30 

Liberal Course of Study 31 

Scientific branches — natural science, mathematics 31 

Why pursued 31 

Why not exclusively pursued 32 

Literary branches — history and language 33 

Why pursued 33 

Why not exclusively pursued 34 

1. History 38. 

Course of instruction 3S 

Methods of presentation 38 

2. Language 39 

Course of instruction 39 

Methods of presentation 40^ 

The place of Latin , 41 

" " " French and German 42 

" " " English 44 

Summary of language instruction 44 

3. Natural science 45 

Course of study and method of presentation 45 

4. Mathematics and fine art 46' 

Course of study and method of presentation 46 

A Liberal Course Lndividual in its Application 47 

Technical Education 50 

The Classical Course 50 

College requisitions for admission 50 

Distinction between the college and the university 51 

Course of study 51 

Importance of extending the school period 53 

The Scientific Course 53 

General considerations 54 

Course of instruction 55 

The Business Course 55 

Division of Pupils into Grades, Classes, and Sections 56 

Chart of the Liberal Course of Study 56 

Chart of the Classical and Scientific Courses 57 



Analysis. 



PAGE 

Practical Features of the Plan 58 

Number of exercises and studies 58 

Progress in the several grades continuous in each study 59 

Course of study liberal in every grade 59 

Systems of examination 60 

]\f ethods of promotion 63 

The education of girls 64 

Plan of Organization 66 

Trustees 66 

Faculty 66 

Method of superintendence 67 

Assistant teachers 68 

The department system 70 

Advantages T^ 

Arrangement of building 7^ 

Objections considered 72 

Number of students and teachers 73 



APPENDIX. 



Relation of the School to the Home and to Society 75 

School-education by itself not complete ... 76 

Relation between the school and the home 76 

The home-school 77 

Academies and boarding-schools for boys 78. 

Female seminaries and boarding-schools 80 

The home-school again 80' 

Relation betwreen the school and society 8l 

The school a " little republic" 82 



PLAN OF AN INSTITUTION 



DEVOTED TO 



Liberal Education 



OBJECTS OF THE INSTITUTION. 

Primarily : Liberal Education, or a symmetrical 
and harmonious development of the individual boy or 
girl, in all their capacities — physical, intellectual, moral 
and spiritual. 

Incidentally: Technical Education, or an un- 
symmetrical and inharmonious development of the indi- 
vidual ; a preparation for a special course of study or for 
a special profession, trade or occupation. Examples of 
special or technical courses are — 

The Classical Course, with a bias toward the Latin and 
Greek classics and the abstract sciences. This course 
prepares for college. 

The Scientific Course, with a bias for the natural, the 
abstract and the applied sciences. This course fits a 
young man for a Scientific School or for a special occu- 
pation. 

The Business Course, which is largely elective. Here 
the demands or tastes of each individual will determine 
his bias in school and in after-life. 



TO Plan of an Institution 

But the main purpose of the institution shall be to 
secure to any boy or girl, between the ages of four and 
twenty, an education which, being supplemented by the 
education of the home and the world at large, shall be 
liberal. A technical education is subordinate to a liberal 
education and should be deferred as long as possible, 
consistently with individual wants and interests. 

LIBERAL EDUCATION. 

General Considerations. — To comprehend the nature of 
a liberal education implies a true understanding and a 
spiritual apprehension of the nature and destiny of the 
child. Here is a wonderful creature, with wonderful 
capacities, wonderfully adjusted; capable of great achieve- 
ments, great responsibilities, great hopes, great strength 
of character ; destined for all the relations of life and for 
growth in the infinite and immortal attributes of God's own 
being. To fulfil its purpose a liberal education should so 
develop the child's whole nature, that he may do his whole 
duty in life, keep himself unspotted from the world and 
grow in the image of the Father. This development 
requires on his part not only continuous and earnest 
endeavor, but also well-directed and well-adjusted fac- 
ulties. The well-balanced mind is best capable of self- 
control and best able to use wise counsel. All personal, 
social, political and religious differences arise from nar- 
row, one-sided or half-educated minds. This narrowness 
in education leads to conceit and contempt, to enmity and 
crime. In the fulness of wisdom is the life of the soul. 
The undue cultivation of any faculty, desire or affection 
will warp the judgment, cripple the moral nature and 
defeat the spiritual life. The harmonious and symmet- 
rical cultivation of all our ennobling activities will pro- 



Devoted to Liberal Education, ix 

duce strength, wisdom, purity, spirituality. It is by the 
combination of all the colors of the solar spectrum that 
pure white light is produced. If one color be wanting in 
the combination, the Hght is stained. So in life : if one 
ennobling faculty is neglected in our education or is cul- 
tivated to the exclusion of other good qualities, the life is 
not pure, but stained. 

What is needed, therefore, in a liberal education, is not 
so much classical learning, scientific attainment or com- 
mercial training, as that education which will make whole- 
souled men and women, fitted for any calling or duty in 
life. Such an education, omitting for the present the sub- 
ject of physical development, may be considered from 
three standpoints: (i) as securing the necessary useful 
information ; (2) as training the intellectual faculties ; and 
(3) as developing the immortal parts of our being — the 
character or the soul. 

I. The Necessary Useful Information. 

Of the vast sum of human knowledge, what is of most 
value as mere information, as data to be used in living 
a complete life? What part of this information may be 
acquired between the ages of four and twenty years ? In 
rounding out a perfect life, the individual meets certain 
well - defined duties ; the fulfilment of these determines 
the nature of the information required. 

Duty of Self-preservation. — This requires a knowledge 
of (i) physiology and hygiene, together with the sciences 
upon which they are based — physics, chemistry and bot- 
any ; (2) practical psychology and ethics ; (3) human, 
nature as revealed by experience ; and (4) some trade or 
occupation which may be pursued as a means of obtain- 
ina: a livelihood. 



12 Plan of an Institution 

Duty to Family. — This implies a knowledge of (i) the 
physical development, the physiology and the hygiene of 
the child; (2) the psychological nature and growth of 
the child; (3) his moral and spiritual nature and needs; 
and (4) the domestic economies and virtues. 

Duty to Society and the State. — This implies a practical 
knowledge of (i) human nature as revealed by experi- 
ence ; (2) the arts and sciences pursued by one's fellow- 
men ; (3) the resources and needs of one's town's people ; 
(4) the manners, customs and social institutions of one's 
town, state and country ; (5) the political economy and 
civil government of one's own and other nations ; (6) gen- 
eral history and the biographies of the best men ; (7) the 
best literature and art ; and (8) mental, moral and social 
science. 

Duty to God. — This presupposes a knowledge of (i) 
nature as God's handiwork ; (2) mankind as formed in 
the image of tixC Creator ; (3) religious institutions, be- 
liefs and writings ; and (4) God as revealed to man by 
Christ, the Bible, the prophets and sages of all time, and 
by communion with Him. 

II. Training the Intellectual Faculties. 

A true psychology is an indispensable prerequisite of 
a rational education. It is necessary to understand not 
only the nature, use and cultivation of each of the intel- 
lectual faculties, but also the order in which they natur- 
ally develop during the period of school-life. 

A. NATURE, USE AND CULTIVATION. 

I . The Perceptive Faculty. — With eyes we see not, with 
ears we hear not, with hands we feel not. Through the 
medium of the senses we become conscious of the external 



Devoted to Liberal Education. 13 

world. The phenomena thus observed give material 
or data upon which the imagination and reason act. 
Through perception, directly or indirectly, we obtain all 
the knowledge we have that is not the result of direct 
intuition. The objective study of the following subjects 
leads to the power of close and accurate observation: 
(i) the natural sciences — anatomy, physiology, botany, 
zoology, physics, chemistry, geology and astronomy ; (2) 
the customs, dress, manners, arts and institutions of one's 
own town, state or nation ; (3) and in general what is 
revealed to the outward sense. This faculty is either 
largely neglected or improperly applied in most public 
and private schools. 

2. TJic Imagination. — Through this faculty we may 
combine the individual data that are received through 
the perceptive faculty into more complex, more useful 
and more beautiful forms. By it the mathematician pro- 
jects his scale ; the inventor makes new combinations ; the 
scientific inquirer devises new conditions in the discovery 
of principles ; the historian restores from a few relics a 
record of ancient civilization ; the philosopher portrays the 
inner nature of the universe, man and God ; the artist cre- 
ates monuments of immortal worth ; the poet and divine 
picture the true, beautiful and good in the soul of man 
and in the personality of God. It is the creative faculty, 
lifting us up from the world of sense toward the realm of 
spirit. It is constantly in use, and its abuse mainly con- 
sists in giving attention to unworthy objects. The studies 
which will aid the imagination to the pupil's advantage 
are — (i) the abstract sciences applied; (2) the concrete 
and natural sciences ; (3) history, biography and fiction ; 
(4) Hterature and art; (5) psychology and philosophy; 
(6) theology and ethics. 



14 Plan of an Institution 

3. The Reasoning Faculty.^ — With the reason we form 
all our comparisons, classifications, generahzations, induc- 
tions and deductions. With the reason alone can we pass 
from the known data of consciousness, given through the 
perceptive, imaginative and intuitive faculties, to the 
world of pure thought, wherein are constructed all the 
sciences, abstract and concrete, and where are formulated 
all systems of philosophy, morality, theology and religion. 
In this realm, the methods are necessary, absolute, innate, 
and when formulated, give the science of sciences — logic. 
Through the reason we co-ordinate all our perceptions 
and intuitions, and thus regulate our conduct, using wise 
counsel and judgment. Its cultivation may be enhanced 
by the study of (i) the abstract sciences — philosophy, 
logic and mathematics ; (2) the applied sciences — ethics, 
general psychology and applied mathematics ; and (3) 
the concrete sciences, so called, — political economy and 
civil government, sociology and biology, physics and 
chemistry. The abstract sciences accustom the mind to 
accuracy, to complete demonstration and absolute proof, 
to the separation of problems into their elements, to the 
generalization of ideas, and to the methods of deduc- 
tive reasoning. In the applied sciences we recognize 
the accuracy, persistency and necessity of moral, intellec- 
tual and material forces and principles, and learn to apply 
them to our own motives, thoughts and acts. In the 
concrete sciences we meet the most complex conditions — 
the field of conflicting probabilities and possible contin- 
gencies. Here every faculty of the mind is brought into 
activity and performs operations common to the abstract 
sciences as well. The concrete sciences afford the addi- 
tional advantage that they deal largely with the practical 

* Under this faculty are included abstraction, analysis and synthesis. 



Devoted to Liberal Education. 15 

affairs of life. But the best field for the exercise of the 
reason is on the border-land between science, or systema- 
tized knowledge, and that knowledge which we daily 
attempt to reduce to system. In the problems presented 
for our solution by the every-day experiences of life, we 
best learn to reason correctly. Next in value to the prob- 
lems presented by our own lives are those presented by the 
lives of others, as revealed to us by our own observation, 
or by history, literature and art. 

4. The Intuitive Faculty!^ — Through this faculty we 
discover the axioms of mathematics, the necessary prop- 
erties of matter, the canons of logic and all the necessary 
or innate ideas. The abstract sciences are constructed by 
the reasoning faculty acting upon the intuitions as primi- 
tive truths — first principles. The instincts of the child 
are his first intuitions. Through intuition is revealed the 
ideal in the material, the real in the ideal, the poetic in 
nature and art, the unseen and eternal in the visible and 
transient ; the true, the beautiful and good in all nature, 
art, life and being. Through this faculty we are raised 
nearest to the apprehensions of the soul. It is cultivated 
by the study of (i) nature, as a manifestation of the 
Divine Being ; (2) art, as an expression of ideas, emotions, 
genius and character; (3) literature and philosophy, as 
revealing the eternal verities concerning man and God ; 
(4) man, as fashioned in the image of the Father ; and (5) 
God, as revealed by communion and fellowship with Him. 

Memory and the Association of Ideas. — The amount 
of intellectual ability absolutely acquired, under any sys- 
tem of education, is inconsiderable when compared with 
that which is inherited. It is ours to tise most econom- 
ically the abilities we have, adding our infinitesimal as 

* This includes the faculty of taste of some authors. 



1 6 Plan of an Institution 

through us the evolution of mankind passes. Particularly 
is this true of the faculty of retentiveness or memory. 
By devotion to a particular subject great acquisitions in 
that subject are possible, or, by fixed attention to a certain 
class of objects, memory of them is better. But memory 
of a particular subject, or class of objects, does not aid 
the retentive power as a whole ; and though it may be 
economized in certain ways, it cannot be perceptibly 
increased. By leaving all the other powers of the mind 
and heart dormant, undoubtedly some additional reten- 
tiveness might be acquired. But this again is to divert 
power, not to create it. And any undue stress thus 
laid upon one faculty, with the hope of greatly improving 
it, is a waste of energy — does not contribute to a liberal 
education. A history of the abuses practised in educa- 
tional institutions upon the assumption that the " memory" 
may be strengthened, and that the end of education is the 
acquisition of knowledge, forms one of the saddest chap- 
ters in human experience. Children memorize verses, 
poetry, symbols, words, sentences, arithmetic, grammar, 
history, and so on, arbitrarily, artificially and irrationally. 
Teachers measure their success by the amount of lip- 
service they can extort during recitation, and the num- 
ber of sentences and data that are held until the final 
examination. Committees and parents estimate a child's 
progress by the quantity of information which can be 
glibly rehearsed. Ignorance of some special event is an 
unpardonable disgrace ; but ability to adapt means to 
ends, powers to duties and responsibilities is not suffi- 
ciently recognized in school-work. 

Special effort is therefore necessary to guard against 
this unnatural and abortive use of the retentive power. 
A scientific and practical knowledge of the whole field 



Devoted to Liberal Edtication. 17 

of psychology, and more especially, in this connection, 
knowledge of the laws of associative ideas, is absolutely 
required by teachers. Every subject should be brought 
before the pupil in such a manner as to utilize these laws 
unconsciously. Such a presentation would be rational 
and natural ; and while all the powers of the mind are 
being thus symmetrically developed, the proper useful 
information would be retained. Again, experience shows 
that he who would remember much must think deeply,, 
feel deeply and live deeply. School-life should resemble 
as far as possible the actual experiences of the wisest, 
bravest and purest men and women. School-life should 
be a real experience, worthy of the child and the future 
citizen. 

In education, as in everything else, our attention is 
mainly fixed upon tangible, visible, ornamental and imme- 
diate results. We overlook the unconscious, invisible and 
permanent changes going on in the mind and heart. The 
healthy action and growth of the body is mostly uncon- 
scious and unknown. Only in disease and injury do we 
ask for any immediate changes following treatment. And 
even here all true healing and reparation is by natural 
and unconscious processes. If the development of the 
body, which is so changeable and perishable, is inscrut- 
able, how much more unknown and unknowable are the 
expanding processes of the mind and heart! Shall we,, 
therefore, presume to force a development of the intel- 
lect and to reap the fruits of our labor on the eve of our 
sowing? Faith in the natural expansion of the powers of 
the mind under the influence of natural and rational effort 
is the first step in educational progress. Every sensation, 
idea, emotion and volition makes an ineffaceable impres- 
sion upon the inner life, whether we remember it or not^ 



1 8 Plan of an Institution 

Often we develop most when we least suspect it. The 
unseen and eternal in our lives far exceeds and transcends 
the conscious and transient. We have only external signs 
of the life within and these only enable us to adopt cer- 
tain methods in education conformable to the truest physi- 
ology, the truest psychology and the truest religion that 
we know. The most we should ever hope to do for a 
child is, to surround him with the conditions by which he 
may attain a perfect stature. 

B. THE ORDER OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FACULTIES. 

It is quite as important in educational economy to 
follow the order of the development of the intellectual 
faculties as to recognize their existence. Not that any of 
them are wholly inactive at any time of life, but each 
has its own period of increasing, maximum and decreas- 
ing activity. 

I. As ih.Q perceptive faculty inrx^x^Q^ all the data con- 
cerning the external world that are used by the other 
faculties, it develops first. The child sees everything, 
hears everything and learns everything which the senses 
can reveal. Childhood, therefore, is the time to train the 
senses and the power of observation ; the time to learn 
colors, forms, rocks, flowers, leaves, animals and all sensi- 
ble objects of interest. Therefore the objective and the 
phenomenal in the natural sciences, in history and art 
should be presented to the child. 

Every perception consists of a sensation and a concept 
or idea. Those perceptions in which the sensational is 
prominent attract the child's attention first, and those in 
which the concept is predominant later. Again, a child's 
concepts are simple ; more and more complex ideas are 



Devoted to Liberal Education, 19 

possible with advancing years. A true order of study 
will lirst cultivate those perceptions which are sensational 
and simple, later those that are conceptual and com- 
plex. In visual perceptions color precedes form, form 
structure, structure function, function composition and 
co-ordination. In the study of botany or zoology, for 
example, the child learns to distinguish successively (i) 
the color and tactile properties, (2) the form, size and 
number, (3) the structure and use, (4) the morphology and 
physiology, and (5) the final cause of each organ of a 
plant or an animal. 

2. The imaginative faculty comes to its highest propor- 
tional development next. In the bo}^ and girl the poetic, 
imaginative, romantic and ideal seek expression. The 
mind is constructive, creative and impulsive. The con- 
duct is not guided by experience nor the thoughts by rea- 
son. The moral nature is not yet crystallized into form. 
At this critical period there is little recognition, even in 
our best schools, of the real nature of the pupil. The cur- 
riculum consists in " memorizing" so much geography, 
gi-ammar and arithmetic ; in learning the mechanical pro- 
cesses of writing, spelling and drawing ; and in " reading" 
and singing. Some attempt is made to cultivate the rea- 
soning faculty by means of the sciences of arithmetic and 
grammar. But since this faculty ripens later, the result is 
chiefly more memorizing. Against this the child's nature 
revolts. All the arts of the pedagogue and the fond parent 
are brought to bear upon the child. Still school continues 
a drudger}^ Relief is sought in sports, dancing and other 
recreations not specially harmful in themselves. But the 
effect of these and the school-life combined is to bring the 
cause of education into contempt, and all serious effort in 
behalf of the child into ridicule. The higher powers of 



20 Plan of an Institution 

the child remain undeveloped and his exuberance of 
life finds expression in questionable conduct and char- 
acter, while the native proclivities of the boy or girl 
turned in the right direction would afford the strongest 
rnotive power in the achievement of intellectual and moral 
vigor. 

The studies which will cultivate the imaginative fac- 
ulty and are most appropriate at this age are — (i) the best 
biographies adapted to the child ; (2) historical sketches,, 
dramas and novels ; (3) the best literature, poetry and 
art that the child can comprehend ; (4) the beautiful, 
poetic and ideal in natural objects; and (5) the imagi- 
native in geometry and mechanics. Besides these, the 
mechanical processes of learning to read, write, draw and 
cipher are necessary, but should be incidental to the other 
work. 

The imagination, too, shows successive phases of devel- 
opment. Its combinations are simple at first, and later may 
attain great proportions. At first it applies itself to the 
combination of the concrete, phenomenal and mechani- 
cal; later it embodies the poetic, artistic and ethical; and 
finally it pictures the philosophical and religious. 

3. The reasoning faculty comes into conspicuous activ- 
ity in the young man and young woman. At this age the 
data of perception and intuition may be arranged in syste- 
matic order; science is now possible. History and human 
conduct are viewed in the light of the political and social 
sciences. Natural phenomena, before in " beautiful con- 
fusion," find their explanation in the natural sciences and 
mathematics. Grammar and philology are intelligible.. 
The mysteries of the world, human life and God give: 
way to systems of philosophy, ethics and theology. The 
triumphs of debate, of argument, of system, of mechan-^ 



Deijoted to Liberal Education. 



21 



ism, have now their keenest relish. "Reasoning pride" 
and intellectual conceit — 

"Shades of the prison-house — begin to close 
Upon the growing boy." 

Essential as a thorough and extended cultivation of the 
reasoning faculty is, we are apt to exaggerate its place 
among the other faculties in a hberal education. Its cul- 
ture requires a pursuit of the abstract, applied and con- 
crete sciences, but the child learns earliest to reason about 
concrete things. Here, again, is an argument for the early 
study of natural objects and artificial products, of common 
events and human conduct. 

4. The inhntive facidty accompanies the others con- 
tinually ; but its richest harvest comes in maturer years. 
Its cultivation counteracts in a measure an over-culture 
of the reasoning capacity. As the spiritual nature in- 
creases during the whole life, while the intellectual capa- 
city passes its climax of activity early in life, that faculty 
which brings us nearest to the world of the soul is slowest 
in its development and continues active latest in life. In- 
tuitions concerning nature are the earliest to appear, later 
the finer instincts of the moral and spiritual life. 

Conclusions.— ii) At no time in life can any of the intel- 
lectual faculties be overlooked, but each needs cultivation, 
in proportion to its relative importance and activity, at 
every period. It is absurd to expect a child to reason as 
a young man reasons, or that a young man should have 
that wisdom and insight which belong to maturer years. 
In most courses of study, however, those studies which 
cultivate the powers of observation are at the end, and are 
pursued by pupils whose reasoning and intuitive faculties 
are ripe for action ; while those studies which cultivate the 



22 Plan of an Institution 

reason are at the beginning of the course, and are forced 
upon^mere children. Therefore the usual courses of in- 
struction should be inverted. 

(2) From the foregoing considerations it follows that 
each department of study — history, language, natural sci- 
ence, and mathematics — should be taught in every grade 
of the school : in the lowest grades objectively and con- 
cretely ; in the next grades imaginatively and poetically ; in 
the higher grades rationally, scientifically, philosophically ;; 
in all grades as purely and spiritually as possible. Again,, 
instruction in the lower grades should be aided by con- 
versations, in the intermediate grades more by read- 
ing and writing, in the higher grades by conferences, 
reading, writing, lectures, original research and investi- 
gation. 

(3) Although the acquisition of information is neces- 
sary, the ability to acquire follows from a rational train- 
ing of the intellectual faculties. At each stage in educa- 
tion the faculties are best trained upon that subject-matter 
which is most easily acquired at that age. The subject- 
matter which is most useful for training is also most use- 
ful as information. The amount of information whicli 
should be acquired is only so much as is necessary to the 
best development of the intellect. But the mind is not a 
box with compartments to be filled : rather is it a single 
instrument, to be used like the body, wherein "if one 
member suffer, all the members suffer with it." 

III. The Formation of the Permanent, — the Moral 
AND Spiritual in Life. 

This third phase of education is the most difficult one. 
The teacher can impart information directly, by securing 



Devoted to Liberal Education. 23 

the interest of the pupil. The intellectual faculties can 
be led to perform exercises sure to strengthen them. 
But efforts to form character must be largely indirect and 
unconscious, " dropping like the gentle dew" from an 
atmosphere of purity and love created by the teacher 
among his pupils. His mind must be fresh, vigorous and 
clear, filled with the wisdom that cometh from above ; his 
emotional nature, pure and sympathetic ; his soul full of 
hope, courage, inspiration and piety. Then will disci- 
pline be easy ; praise and censure will bear their just fruits. 
As with God, so with such a teacher, moral and spiritual 
victories are possible. Morality and piety are lights in 
their own pathway. The teacher who walks therein shall 
lead to "the Way, the Truth, the Life." 

The growth of the inner life depends upon (i) good 
physical conditions ; (2) the cultivation of an intellectual 
capacity for receiving truth from without or the opening 
of the mind to divine influences ; (3) the encouragement of 
a deep, generous, sympathetic and pure emotional nature; 

(4) the mculcation of high moral aims and principles — 
such, for example, as the second commandment of Christ ; 

(5) the cultivation of high religious aims — as, for example^ 
the first commandment of Christ; (6) obedience to the 
dictates of conscience and the nature of God as revealed 
by communion with Him. 

The emotional nature is kept strong and pure by strong 
and pure relations in life, by contact with the beauti- 
ful and good in nature, art, history, literature and philos- 
ophy. The importance of the cultivation of the emotions 
IS recognized by considering the place they hold in shap- 
ing the destinies of the best lives. 

Music is so helpful in cultivating, through the emo- 
tions, the moral and spiritual, that one absolute prerequisite 



24 ' Plan of an Institution 

in a teacher in the lower grades is the abiHty to lead chil- 
dren in singing. 

Again, though general devotional exercises in a large 
institution are invaluable, yet every grade teacher should 
conduct some such exercises. If he do not, the possi- 
bility of the highest and holiest relations between teacher 
and pupil is lost. Without such opportunity, a teacher 
who carries his heart and soul into his work is chilled and 
thwarted in his efforts in behalf of those he loves. En- 
courage, then, the true teacher to sing with his pupils, to 
read from the Bible and to repeat the Lord's Prayer. To 
inculcate the duties of life and to lift them into the light 
of God's countenance ; to associate childhood's daily 
efforts with the wealth of divine sympathy, is at once to 
create the higher life and make all effort gladsome. To 
unite the moral sentiments with the religious feelings is 
necessary to the perfect life, and to combine these strong 
elements in the formation of the permanent is the teacher's 
privilege, duty, hope and blessing. Nor need we fear 
that, with the true teacher, the Lord's Prayer or the para- 
bles will become meaningless formalities, or dogmatic and 
intellectual statements ; but rather will they be the utter- 
ances and aspirations of a child of heaven. 

As character can be formed by the influence of true and 
pure ideas, feelings, motives and aspirations, so impure 
ideas and motives will destroy character. As the former 
should be inculcated, the latter should be avoided and 
•eradicated. That the ability to know is more valuable 
than information acquired, and that a moral and spiritual 
life is infinitely better than intellectual ability, should be 
early and constantly demonstrated to the child. What, 
then, shall be said of those schools which aim chiefly, or 
exclusively, at mental attainments? And again, what of 



Devoted to Liberal Education. 25 

those schools which secure mental attainment through 
such motives as prizes, rewards of merit, high marks, 
honors, etc. ? It is the motive of the action and not the 
act itself which determines its moral and real value. Only 
'high moral aims and purposes can strengthen character. 
All actions prompted by false motives shall utterly fail to 
bring the life eternal, and likewise all our poor information 
and intellect shall waste away. To place before a child 
false motives turns a child's face away from God ; to place 
before him high motives turns his face towards God. A 
wrong motive can never make a right life. God's king- 
dom cannot be built up with the weapons of destruction. 
The end can never justify the means. 

The practical ^ffect of the so-called "marking system," 
as generally used, is pernicious. The true teacher finds 
the marks, prizes, honors and the rivalries these produce, 
his worst enemies. Good and false motives cannot exist 
in the mind at the same time. The continued presence of 
false motives destroys the susceptibility to true ones. The 
true teacher relies on his moral and spiritual personal 
influence for his success in the formation of character. If 
pupils perform their duties from motives other than those 
which the true teacher presents, then the chief aim of the 
teacher — the formation of the permanent and eternal in the 
soul of his pupils — fs thwarted. Older pupils are continu- 
ally irritated by the conflict of motives presented by the 
love of truth and duty on the one hand, and the false 
motive — a high mark — on the other. Young children are 
influenced to study mostly by the "marks," and becon^e, 
under the pressure thus produced, irritable, nervous and 
diseased. Teachers spend the energies which should be 
directed to legitimate school work in keeping the "marks" 
right ; and the more conscientious the teacher, the worse 



26 Plan of an Institution 

the result. In the end, justice is not done, and thus a 
barrier of injustice is placed between the teacher and pupil. 
With the marking system, a teacher needs no moral or 
religious qualifications. A knave is as good as a saint in 
the school-room, if his conduct be not unseemly. Again, 
many a rare young man or woman has gained the prizes 
of the school, only to lose those of the after-life, and of 
the soul. The habit of working from false motives con- 
tracted in school continues through life. Mankind learns 
to love reputation and to overlook the value of character. 
Mankind, in general, do not aim at the moral, the spiritual 
and the eternal, but at the pleasurable, the material and 
the perishable. How much blame is justly laid at the 
teacher's door ! 

There is no reason for mentioning the marking system 
so much at length, except that it is a type of a large num- 
ber of immoral practices in our schools. A teacher or 
institution that will use such a stimulus as " high marks" 
and " prizes" is permeated through and through with the 
wrong spirit and wrong methods. The marking system 
is an external sign of what is within and around and 
above. Character grows in the sunshine of love, truth, 
beauty and holiness. Our country does not need greater 
material prosperity, nor more brilliant intellectual achieve- 
ments, but noble, honest, heroic and pure men and women 
to keep her from the shoals of vice, poverty and crime. 
Our children demand of us the keys to unlock the king- 
dom of heaven. They demand the Bread of Life. Shall 
we give them a stone ? The reputation may, or may not, 
accord with the character. But reputation is a coy crea- 
ture, and he who would follow her has lost his character. 
Is not this the solution of the whole difficulty, that we are- 



Devoted to Liberal Education. 2 J 

more anxious about our reputation than about our char- 
acter and train our children accordingly ? 

Since the soul is the immediate source of all our acts, 
thoughts and motives, it is necessary to look within for 
the sources of all the commands and all the laws we 
obey. The laws of our country have no existence except 
in the hearts, lives and souls of her people. Her people 
interpret her written constitution, make and unmake her 
written statutes, obey and disobey her laws. Her real 
constitution and laws are the constitution of man as an 
intellectual, moral, social and religious being. Her writ- 
ten law is but an outward form of the unwritten law of 
the soul. As the latter changes so the former takes on 
new forms. It is the sense of duty which prompts men 
to righteous action. It is the sense of right and wrong 
implanted in the soul which determines the moral char- 
acter of any thought, deed or motive. It is the con- 
science which interprets all law, human or divine. It 
is our task to so elevate human nature that the divine law 
may be interpreted in fuller measure. He whose soul is 
fashioned most nearly like God's will most fully obey His 
commands, because kindred natures are subject to the 
same law. In the government of schools the teacher fos- 
ters a moral susceptibility which shall determine the 
moral character of every act, thought or purpose in the 
child's mind, and leads the pupil to rely on the prompt- 
ings of his own conscience as the voice of God in the 
soul. 

The presentation of the subject-matter of a liberal course 
of study will do much to create the permanent in life. 
Truth thus broadly laid before the pupil will expand his 
intellect, warm his heart and stimulate the inner life. 



28 . Plan of an Institution % 

''Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is- to 
behold the sun." But the influence of living example in 
the teacher will do more to mould the character of the 
child than the truths of science, art, history or philoso- 
phy. In the power of the teacher to lead his pupils rests 
the main influence of the school for good. The best 
teacher will at first find among his pupils souls so pure, 
■dispositions so sweet, love so disinterested and pur- 
poses so honest that his own shortcomings are effectively 
rebuked. But as his • experience, his sense of duty and 
his yearning for the higher life increase, he rises into a 
clearer and purer atmosphere and becomes the embodi- 
ment of all that is pure and holy in human nature. Then 
he is indeed a leader, a teacher and a creator. No work 
is more practical, more necessary, more righteous or 
more divine than his. The true teacher will continually 
draw on all the resources of his own nature and seek 
g-uidance from the best sources without. The great 
Teacher and Founder of Christianity came ''that they 
might have life, and that they might have it more 
abundantly." A close study of the life of Jesus of Naza- 
reth is incumbent on "^ every teacher. And it is not 
enough to carefully read the New Testament, but inform- 
ation should be sought from all reliable sources, that as 
full an understanding as possible of His sayings, His works 
and His spirit may be caught. Christ so felt the presence 
of divinity in Him that the teacher may seek in Flim an 
inexhaustible inspiration for his work. Christ is the soul- 
creating element of history. Again, those prophets, apos- 
tles, saints, heroes, statesmen, divines and teachers who 
have been most like Christ in spirit may well be his con- 
stant companions in leisure moments. The treasures 
of every field of literature, science, art and philosophy 



Devoted to Liberal Education. 29 

should be wide open to those who would be architects in 
God's kingdom among childreuo 

The undue development of the intellect weakens and 
destroys the ability to apprehend moral and religious 
things and cripples the life of the soul. In the study of 
the natural sciences, mathematics and logic, we learn to 
use our senses and our reason. We do not learn that 
moral and spiritual truths cannot be discerned by those 
same faculties, and hence conclude that there is no moral 
or spiritual life. Again, the habit of mathematical exact- 
ness and scientific clussification, if carried too far, will 
cause the mind to attempt an exact or mechanical view of 
the spiritual life. The intellectual man craves mere intel- 
lectual statements, "forms," systems. But the spiritual 
faculty transcends all systems, scientific, philosophic or 
theological, and apprehends and lives by truths which 
cannot be reduced to form, i.e., by the truth which is in 
God and is God. Finally, in the study of nature, history 
and even ethics and theolog}^ there prevails in our day 
the idea that " Lazu' controls the universe, society, moral- 
ity and even God's own will; that "■ Lazv" is omnipotent, 
and that God is thus excluded from His own universe. 
The universe, however, when viewed by a God-knowing 
mind, is only a constant manifestation of His person- 
ality. It is not so much "-law" or we who act, as God, 
in whom we live and move and have our being. And 
our recognition of Him comes through the spirit, not the 
intellect — comes because our spirit is in the image of the 
Creator. The undue development of the intellect and 
the application of intellectual and mechanical systems is 
nowhere so conspicuous, so stultifying in its effects as in 
our schools. The discipline of the arm}'^, the emulation of 
the race-course, the importance of material success in. 



30 Plan of an Institution 

business or society, the fame of science and art, the material 
and mechanical conceptions of nature and life which form 
public opinion, and the intellectualisms of church-dogma 
all appear in an intensified and aggravated form in the 
institutions to which we entrust our children. 

The conclusion is that a well-trained intellect is more 
valuable than a storehouse of facts ; that character is 
more than intellectual ability ; that the love and approval 
of God will alone give the life eternal, and that false mo- 
tives, purposes and aims can accomplish neither of these 
•ends, but are the enemies of them all. 

The relative importance of the different phases of the 
education of the whole child should influence the framing 
of the course of study. Most schools now spend their 
greatest efforts in imparting information. They attempt 
to train the intellect but little, and no conscious effort is 
made in behalf of the active, moral and spiritual natures. 
Indeed, it is not required that teachers lead moral and 
spiritual lives. But poor scholarship and weak intellect 
are sufficient ground for expulsion or rejection. It is 
now superfluous to add that the efforts of teachers and 
schools should be exerted in an inverse ratio. The same 
subjects or studies may serve at the same time the three 
phases of education, and still the relative importance of 
the three phases be maintained. For example, history 
furnishes abundant useful information, good training and 
is an exhortation to lead a pure and holy life. As a rule 
get the necessary facts upon which to use the intellectual 
faculties, and make these last servants of a conscientious 
and devout heart and soul. 

As a life purely intellectual must end and the spiritual 
life is eternal, so an intellectual education will make no 
visible or lasting impression upon the soul ; but that edu- 



Devoted to Liberal Ediccation. 31 

cation which draws its life and light and inspiration from 
the Eternal Source of all things shall be infinite and en- 
during. When, therefore, it is acknowledged that child- 
hood and youth is the period when the soul expands most 
readily under the divine impulse, it may well be asked, 
Do our educational institutions do their whole duty ? 
Either the spiritual life is all that is here indicated or it is 
nothing. If it is all we know it to be, shall the cultivation 
of that life in its broad, unsectarian, divine aspect be with- 
held from our youth ? Shall any sickly sectarian bias ren- 
der it impossible for divine influences to enter the school- 
room ? The Sermon on the Mount, the parables, the 
Epistles are the bread of life to every human soul. This 
is not a drcavi. If it is, then the wise and good in all 
times have dreamt most, and Christ is the arch-dreamer. 
No ! faith in the life of Christ, as the most practical, most 
real, most moral and spiritual example and guide, will 
teach us the littleness of the intellect and the infinity of 
the real life of the soul of man. 

COURSE OF STUDY. 

The subject-matter which is used in a liberal course of 
study falls naturally under two primary divisions — (i) tJic 
Scientific Branches and (2) tJie Literary Branches ; the for- 
mer including mathematics, natural science and art ; the 
latter philosophy, history and language. 

I. The Scientific Branches. — These should form 
part of a liberal education for the following among many 
reasons: (i) In the study of many of the mechanical and 
natural sciences there is an excellent opportunity to give 
the pupil sonietJiing to do zuith his hands, to teach him to be 
physically industrious and useful ; to train his hands, his 



32 Plan of ail Institution 

eyes and indeed his whole body, — to encourage a " sound 
body." (2) The sciences give fully one half of the neces- 
sary useful information required by the average man or 
woman. They include " the bread-and-butter sciences" 
mainly. (3) They train the powers of observation, re- 
flection and reasoning. The abstract sciences teach the 
idea of absolute truth, perfection and being. The applied 
sciences give the idea of necessity in nature and man. (4) 
All the sciences afford a basis for the cultivation of the 
imaginative, the ideal, the literary and the poetic. (5) 
They suggest the true, the beautiful, the good, the unseen 
and eternal, the spiritual and God Himself. " The heav- 
ens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth 
His handiwork." 

The sciences should not form an exclusive or predomi- 
nant part of a liberal course of study, (i) They deal 
mainly with the material, the mechanical, the necessary 
and the intellectual ; the}^ draw attention from the moral, 
the social and the spiritual. (2) They do not include, of 
course, the individual, social, political and moral history 
and nature of man ; nor literature — the storehouse of the 
best thoughts of the best minds of all ages. The exclusive 
study of natural science has a tendency to lead to empiri- 
cism, or a belief that all our knowledge comes from expe- 
rience ; thence to materialism — a belief that in matter is a 
sufificient cause for all the phenomena of nature and of 
mind ; thence to fatalism — a belief that all phenomena, 
even our own acts and thoughts, having their sufficient 
cause in matter, are necessary ; thence to immorality, or 
a want of moral obligation consequent upon a belief in the 
doctrine of necessity ; thence to infidelity, or a lack of 
faith in the dictates of conscience consequent upon neglect 
of moral obligation ; finally to irreligion, as the result of 



Devoted to Liberal Education, 33 

stifling the voice of God in the conscience. These are 
the inevitable steps which follow that empiricism now so 
widely spread in this country and in Europe. — The exclu- 
sive study of mathematics, uncommon as it is, leads the 
mind to apply the necessary, the mechanical and the logi- 
cal methods of mathematics to every department of 
thought. Perhaps no more convincing examples of the 
effects of a mathematical bias can be cited than Descartes,. 
Spinoza and Leibnitz, who applied the mathematical 
methods to nearly every department of thought. How 
much in our literature, philosophy, poetry, ethics and 
religion that is mechanical, mathematical and logical can 
be traced directly to the influence of these men ! With 
all that we owe them, our dogmatisms, literalisms and 
mechanisms in education, science and religion receive 
great encouragement from the writings of these fathers 
of modern thought. 

II. The Literary Branches. — These studies should 
form part of a liberal course of study, (i) A practical 
knowledge of one's own language, written and spoken, is 
a most useful instrument in dealing with mankind and in 
gaining ideas of the past and present thoughts and deeds 
of man. (2) The study of language, ancient or modern,, 
trains the reflective, the imaginative and reasoning facul- 
ties and therefore forms a conspicuous part of courses of 
study preparatory for college and of college curricula. 
(3) The comparative study of language gives the sciences 
of grammar and philology and throws light upon past 
races of men. (4) The study of language, in its most 
truly educational sense, is a study of the ideas expressed 
by language. The literature of all time is the best 
thought of the best minds. This is intellectual, moral 
and inspiring. (5) Experience is a A^aluable drill-master.. 



34 Plan of a7i Instittition 

History is the experience of the past and may serve as a 
most efficient aid in the interpretation of present facts 
and duties. In history we are brought in sympathy with 
the struggles and victories of heroic and faithful men and 
women, with the saints and martyrs, the prophets and di- 
Tines and through the evangelists with Christ. Through 
the recorded lives of others is revealed to us the living 
God. (6) History and literature form the best single 
basis for the cultivation of the whole nature of a child that 
a liberal course of study can offer. (7) Under philosophy 
may be included mental, social and ontological science. 
We cannot know too much of the nature of our own minds 
so constantly in use, or of the relations which exist or 
should exist between men. In ontology we learn the 
nature of existence and man's place in the infinitude of 
created things. 

The literary studies should not form an exclusive or 
predominant place in a sound curriculum, (i) The ex- 
clusive study of pure literature exaggerates the imagina- 
tive, speculative, poetic and mystical states of mind and 
cultivates the emotional nature to excess, if it be not coun- 
teracted by the study of the more exact sciences. (2) Lit- 
erature and philosophy exaggerate speculative habits and 
indispose the mind to the realities of this life. They tend 
to reduce matter, mind, man and even God to mere ideas, 
and thus make idealists, dreamers, mj^stics — men as unreal, 
unpractical and unspiritual as the materialists or fatalists 
produced by the exclusive study of natural science. (3) 
The exclusive study of philosophy often leads the mind 
to formulate systems of belief which are founded on a 
few abstruse definitions, but which have little foundation 
in nature, man or any existence. The transcendental 
philosophy, unless it be counteracted by the empirical, will 



Devoted to Libei^al Education. 35 

end in the merest vaporings of the imagination. (4) An 
exclusive study of history creates a conservative and retro- 
spective rather than an active and progressive mind. (5) 
Literary studies also cultivate the critical tendencies of 
mind. This is seen in the critics so called, in lawyers and 
in essayists. Above all, the exclusive study of language 
produces students of words and sentences — of the forms 
of the expression of thought and not of thought itself. 
This bias is consonant with a literal and mechanical inter- 
pretation of everything that is real, poetical or spiritual 
in literature. The mind grasps the letter of the law and 
loses the spirit. A strict constructionist, whose soul is 
cramped by his literal and mechanical interpretations of 
all that is true, pure and holy, is not able to catch the 
spirit of Christ and the divine law. The Bible is only 
understood by those who have been born of the spirit as 
well as of the flesh and the letter. 

A liberal course of study will comprise, therefore, sci- 
entific and literary studies in nearly equal proportions. 
Neither scientific nor literary study will make a perfect 
man ; the one makes him too materialistic and mechanical 
in his views ; the other too dreamy and ideal ; both to- 
gether give only culture, unless they are studied under 
the guidance of a heart and soul inspired by the Divine 
Being. 

The want of divine inspiration, as a guiding force in 
our educational institutions, makes their instruction in 
mathematics and natural science, commercial ; in language, 
analytic, literal and critical ; in the fine arts, technical 
and sensual ; in history, chronological, statistical, prosaic ; 
in philosophy, materialistic and mechanical, or dreamy 
and idealistic ; in moralit}^ selfish and politic, or dogmatic 
and impracticable ; in religion, indifferent, formal, unreal, 



36 



Plan of an Institution 



unspiritual ; in all branches, technical, illiberal, untrue. 
When the divine presence is felt in our schools in some 
measure such as Christ felt it in Himself, then will all 
studies contribute to a liberal education, leading the stu- 
dent from weakness unto strength, from ignorance unto 
wisdom, from vice unto virtue, and from the finite to the 
infinite and eternal attributes of God. Then will all stu- 
dies be presented from their truly educational standpoint; 
the teacher be no longer a taskmaster, a stern disciplin- 
arian, a machine, but a leader and a creator among men, 
because he has been led and created from on high, — born 
of the spirit. 

«' 
The Liberal Course of Study Further Divided. 



Literary 

Branches. 



liberal 

COURSE. 



{Mental, Moral and Social 
Philosophy. 
History, Biography. 

r Ancient Languages. 

2. Lansiua^e De- _ .. , , ht j t 

* -^ X English and Modern Lan- 



scientific 
Branches. 



part7nent. 



3. Natural Science . -< 



4. Mathematics. 



guages. 

Chemistry and the Life- 
Sciences. 

Physics and Applied Ma- 
thematics. 

Mathematics (proper). 

Fine Arts (including Wri- 
ting and Drawing). 



Are not most courses of study adopted by our schools 
and colleges copies of previous courses, modified to suit 
the bias of a committee or board of trustees, the idiosyn- 
crasies of teachers, the caprice of public opinion, the phan- 
tasies of pseudo-educational reformers, the conceit of re- 
ligious dogma, or the provincialisms of the communities 
in which they are offered ? Addition upon addition, modi- 



Devoted to Liberal Education, 37 

fication upon modification is made until the cumbrous 
structure, never adapted to its purpose, crumbles under 
its own weight and weakness. Thus the confidence of the 
intelligent in school-education wanes, and a noble cause is 
trailed in the dust. No earnest and persistent effort to 
map out at once a natural, psychological, conservative 
and creative course of study, has yet been successful. 

As the best classification of the faculties of the mind is 
somewhat artificial, so also is the above division of the 
course of study. It provides for four departments placed 
on an equal footing, and each is pursued throughout every 
grade from the lowest to the highest. The subject of his- 
tory is given one fourth of the time, because it furnishes 
the best training for the imagibation, the reason, the intui- 
tions, the moral and spiritual faculties. The natural sci- 
ences are given a fourth part, because they furnish most 
of the useful information, train the perceptive faculties 
best and for other reasons already stated under the head 
of Scientific Branches. The linguistic and mathematical 
studies proper are therefore less prominent than in most 
school curricula. This is in accordance, it may be ob- 
served, with the more conservative and permanent alter- 
ations already begun in our best schools. 

Each department is subdivided, making eight groups 
of subjects. The instruction in each group and in all the 
grades of the school is superintended by a professor in 
charge, who also teaches the same subjects in the higher 
grades. This point will be further explained on subse- 
quent pages. 



38 



Plan of an Institution 



I. Instruction in the History Department. 



I. Talks. 



Biography by 
reading and 
writing. 



History {^prop- 
er) by Epochs. 



Philosophy of 
History. 



AGE IN 
YEARS. 

5. About domestic and familiar affairs, 

6. About peoples, places and adventures of the pres- 

ent. 

7. About peoples, places and relics of the past. 

8. American men and women. 

9. Modern Europeans. 

10. Ancient men and women. 

11. American epochs of history. 

12. Modern European epochs: 19th and i8th centuries. 

13. Renascence epochs: 17th to 15th centuries. 

14. Mediaeval history: 14th to 6th centuries. 

15. Ancient history: 500 A.D. to 2000 B.C. 

16. General history, — tracing races, customs and insti- 

tutions in their origin, growth and decay, 
f Political economy ; English industrial, political, 
social, moral and religious institutions; mental 
science. 
American industrial, political, social, moral and 
religious institutions; philosophy, ethics and re- 
ligion. 



17- 
18. 



19. 
L 20. 



In considering the methods of instruction in the sev- 
eral departments, the question of primary importance is 
how it shall best serve its true educational functions in de- 
veloping the faculties. The study of history is divided 
into four cycles, each complete in its way and each pre- 
paring for the succeeding. Children first learn the phe- 
nomenal about them by question and answer. Biography 
interests a child before general history. The best intro- 
duction to any important epoch in history is through the 
life of one or more of its prominent men. These charac- 
ters serve as a nucleus around which to group the impor- 
tant events and lessons of the era. Again, interest in gen- 
eral history follows a thorough understanding of the few 



Devoted to Liberal Education. 



39 



important epochs. A study of a single epoch which will 
lead the pupil to make original investigations and con- 
struct annals for himself is preferable to an outline of the 
whole history of mankind. In the last cycle — the philos- 
ophy of history — the data and experiences of the past are 
constructed into the various industrial, political, social, 
moral and religious sciences and systems. Then an appli- 
6ation of these results to the institutions of our own time 
and people is made. Philosophy, etKics and rehgion are 
not presented formally or dogmatically, but historically 
and liberally. In each cycle of the study of history the 
mind is led from the familiar toward the unfamiliar, from 
the near to the distant, from the present to the past, from 
the personal to the impersonal, from the individual to the 
general, from the concrete to the abstract, and always to- 
wards the pure, the true and the eternal. 

II. The Instruction in the Language Department. 



Talks. 



5. Habits and instincts of animals; moral instincts of 
man. 

6. Beauty, poetry and morals in man and nature. 

7. Talks' about literary men and their homes; read- 
ing by the word-method. 

S. Vocabulary enlarged by reading drawn from every- 
day life. 

2. Readino- and 9- Practice in the simple sentence ; fables, tales, 
sketches. 
10. Writing English sentences; children's literature; 
reading and spelling. 
r II. Reading standard prose; writing descriptions and 
stories; spelling. 

12. Ballads, lyrics, sketches; composition; Latin as a 
basis of English analysis and syntax. 

13. Good prose and poetry; composition; Latin for the 
sake of English syntax and English derivations. 



Writing. 



3. Reading, Coin- 
position, An- ^ 
alysis. 



40 Plan of an Institution 



AGE. 



4. Reading, Com- 
position, Rhe- 
toric, French. 



Literature, 
Composition, 
Philosophy of 
Lans'uas^e. 



14. American authors; Latin applied to English con- 

struction and derivation; composition. 

15. English authors, rhetorically studied; composition; 

French. 

16. English literature; criticism; composition; French. 

17. Early general literature; composition; German. 

18. Later general literature; composition; German. 

19. Universal and comparative literature; synthetic and 

creative study. 

20. Philosophy of expression; pure literature; inven- 

tion. 



A good use of language follows naturally from a good 
understanding. Correct habits of thought give correct 
habits of expression. Reading the best and purest litera- 
ture; conversing with the best and purest companions, 
teachers and friends, compositions on the best and 
purest subjects, will lead to correct habits of thinking, 
speaking and writing. Every study properly conducted 
is an exercise calculated to give ability in speech. The 
use of language is an art whose scientific basis is not the 
science of language-grammar, but the thoughts of the 
human mind. The study of language therefore should 
aim at a cultivation of the understanding. What the sci- 
ence of geometry is to the sculptor, what numbers are to 
a Beethoven, what rules of logic are to sound reasoning, 
that grammar and rhetoric are to the use of language. 
Practice in thinking and in the expression of thought 
should almost wholly replace the study of grammar and 
rhetoric as aids to the use of English. 

Though the study of grammar as an art, practised for 
the sake of improving our speech, is next to useless, the 
study of grammar as a science should be required of 
pupils whose minds are ripened for the reasoning pro- 
cesses, and for the same general purposes that any science 



Devoted to Liberal Education. 41 

is taught. Languag-e is an instrument of thought /'its 
structure corresponds to the constitution of the human 
mind ; its history traces the evolution of human thought; 
its logic is the logic of the understanding; its modulations 
are reflections of human joys and sorrows ; its poetry and 
literature are from the soul. A science which treats of 
material like this is most interesting, most educating. In 
this broad sense the science of language has a large place 
in a liberal education. The scientific study of language is 
an exercise in inductive and deductive reasoning and 
indeed of all the disciplinable faculties. It gives a knowl- 
edge of the structure and growth of words, idioms and of 
a language as a whole ; it accounts for the physical and 
intellectual sources of language and indicates the future 
history of mankind. But there is a study of language 
more important than the scientific : it is a communion 
with the true, the eloquent ; the beautiful, the sublime ; the 
spiritual, the eternal, in pure literature, where science, 
logic, system and reason cannot come — in the literature 
of the soul. 

Latin should be taught as early as the twelfth 3- ear. A 
knowledge of Latin construction is the best auxiliary to 
an understanding of English construction. The inflections 
of Latin give, as the English cannot give, the relations of 
words in sentences. Many English words and idioms are 
from the Latin. The study of a language of inflections 
and accidences creates habits of accuracy in spelling and 
pronunciation, reading and writing, and, best of all, in 
thinking. The value of Latin as a disciplinary study, and 
as a basis for philology, will ever be, to an English student, 
second only to the study of his vernacular. Moreover, it 
is the best introduction to the French language, which 
it should precede in order of time. But an extended 



42 Plan of an Institution 

knowledge of Latin literature in the Latin tongue is not 
included in a liberal course of instruction ending at the 
twentieth year. 

French and German. — The Latin language, with its elab- 
orate system of inflections and accidences, its fixed forms, 
its freedom from foreign admixture, its pure, simple,, 
and homogeneous style, is essentially and pre-eminently a 
logical, scientific or grammatical language. Its struc- 
ture, its literature and its relation to the English give it 
its place in mental discipline, philological research and 
as an auxiliary to the use of English. The English lan- 
guage, on the other hand, is almost without inflection and 
accidence, its literature is most varied, its contents most 
heterogeneous. It is the most complex, most pliable and 
most highly developed of all languages. Its grammar 
is concealed by the idiomatic character of the language. 
Logic, so conspicuous in the structure of the Latin, is 
largely concealed in the English sentence. Its function 
in discipline and in philology is very different from the 
Latin. French and German occupy a middle ground 
between the Latin and the English in almost every respect. 
Neither, therefore, presents anything with which to train 
the intellect and to ground a knowledge of grammar or 
philology which is not possessed by the English or the 
Latin, or the two combined, to a much greater degree. 
Their claim to a place in a liberal course is based, there- 
fore, on the value of an ability to read their literature in 
the original. A thorough acquaintance with French and 
German is invaluable to a specialist in science, philosophy 
or letters. College and university students, with more 
time at their command, will learn these languages for 
many purposes. But the number of people who increase 
their knowledge of French and German after school-days 



Devoted to Liberal Education. 45 

are over, affords an index to the demand for French or 
German in our schools. Our liberal institution, there- 
fore, will be true to its mission if it furnish an opportu- 
nity to acquire a good reading knowledge of these two 
languages. It is almost idle to remark that modern lan- 
guages have been given an imwarrantable prominence in 
many institutions of learning, and especially in young 
ladies' day and boarding schools. The sohd worth of his- 
tory, English literature, science and philosophy have 
been exchanged for what pretends to be little more than 
idle ornament. 

The methods of teaching our own and a foreign lan- 
guage are fundamentally distinct. We should have a 
good practical use of our vernacular before we begin to 
apply the processes of analysis, separating into sentences, 
clauses, words, syllables and letters, or the synthetic pro- 
cesses which follow. These two processes and the science 
called grammar should be used only as a " corrective" in 
speaking and writing. But in learning a foreign tongue 
we should begin with the elements and proceed syntheti- 
cally from letters to syllables, words, sentences and para- 
graphs. The pupil is then ready to read the new lan- 
guage and compare its structure with his own, thus wid- 
ening his knowledge of philology. And again it is evi- 
dent that those who have learned French or German by 
the synthetic or grammar method are better qualified to 
teach those languages than Frenchmen or Germans. 
Accuracy of pronunciation should not be prized more 
highly than a thorough understanding of a language. And 
both these are of little value compared with that vital 
personal influence which the best American teacher exerts^ 
and which is so frequently wanting in the foreigners who 
find their way into our schools. In our zeal for particu- 



44 Plan of ait Institution, . 

lar acquisitions we must not overlook the main purposes 
of education. 

The study of the English la?iguage is a better aid to the 
use of that language than the study of all others com- 
bined. The study of foreign languages in American 
schools often corrupts and enfeebles the use of the Eng- 
lish. English idioms and words are exchanged for others 
less forcible. The Greeks developed the strength and 
beauty of their language without the study of foreign lan- 
g-uages or the grammar of their own. The Latin devel- 
oped steadily until cant and fashion led the Romans to 
study Greek and other oriental tongues. The great Eng- 
lish writers, orators and thinkers often have not been 
close students of Latin, Greek, French or German, nor of 
their own tongue. The great classical scholars of Eng- 
land have written notoriously poor English. The study 
of nature, man, ideas, God, gives understanding and from 
a, good understanding cometh wisdom of speech. English 
literature is the best testimony which the past transmits 
to the present. We cannot make too much of it our own. 
The study of English prose and poetry must form a more 
prominent place in our schools as the best means of appeal- 
ing to the active or the moral and spiritual natures of man. 

Summary. — Latin grammar and translation is taught as 
a basis of English grammar, and in connection with it. 
The study of French and German should also have a 
direct bearing upon the pupils' English, and all these lan- 
guages should be taught by one and the same English 
teacher. In the later years of the course each of the for- 
eign languages should contribute largely to the study of 
literature and philology. The study of language should 
assist in the three phases of education, contributing infor- 
mation, discipline and forming character. The best authors 



Devoted to Liberal Education. 



45 



should be studied critically, historically, philosophically, 
poetically and spiritually, but the chief office of literature 
is the stimulation of moral and religious motives. 

All studies are English studies, and each should con- 
tribute its share to correct thinking, speaking and writing. 

III. Instructton in the Natural Science Department. 



Talks. 



2. Arts. Con 
versation and* 
Readins;, 



I 



3. Sciences 
Reading, Dt 
sctiption and 
Experiment. 



4. Philosophy, f i7- 
Experiment, j3 
Investigation < 
and Inveji- ^9- 
tion, {_ 20. 



Man, animals, plants, things most familiar. 

Animals and plants less familiar. 

Rocks, minerals, water, clouds, atmosphere. 

Structure and habits of animals and plants. 

Descriptive phj'sical geography; chemistry of com- 
mon things. 

Physics of common life; the earth, moon, planets, 
sun and stars. 

Human anatomy and physiology. 

Anatomy and physiology of animals. 

Comparative botany and descriptive mineralogy. 

Structural geology and physical geography. 

General chemistry and qualitative analysis. 

General physics and mechanics. 

Astronomy and palaeontology. 

Physics and chemistry of organic life. 

Comparative anatomy and general biology. 

Man's place in nature; general psychology. 



As in the study of history, this course includes several 
cycles, each embracing about the same subjects, but pre- 
sented to different faculties at different times. The in- 
stinctive and perceptive faculties are exercised first ; then 
the imaginative, poetic and moral ; third, the reasoning 
and intuitive ; and last the intuitive, inventive and crea- 
tive. In each cycle the mind is led from -the familiar to 
the unfamiliar, from the concrete to the abstract, from the 
phenomenal to the real. In the last cycle, however, this 
process is reversed, so that the pupil is prepared to meet 



46 



Plan of a7i Institution 



the world as nearly as possible as it is. Of course every 
grade of school should be amply furnished with the mate- 
rial and apparatus for good practical work. 

IV. Instruction in Mathematics and Drawing. 



Handling 
Talking. 



and 



Observation, Copy- 
ing, Inferior^ 
Art 



Art and Science. < 



Science and In- 
vention. 



Science, Inven- 
tion, Creation. "^ 



5. Colors, forms, sizes of sticks, blocks and familiar ob- 

jects. 

6. Combinations of simple objects, as sticks and blocks; 

use of pencil. 

7. Modelling with clay, plaster, etc.; drawing lines; 

printing. 

8. Form and number objectively; copying simple flats; 

writing. 

9. Geometry as the art of measuring; drawing from na- 

ture; writing. 

10. Four rules of arithmetic as an art; perspective; mod- 

elling; writing. 

11. Constructions in wood and cloth; modelling; free- 

hand drawing; writing. 

12. Arithmetic applied to every-day affairs; perspective 

and geometrical drawing; writing. 

13. Science of arithmetic — four rules and fractions; mod- 

elling and designing; mechanical drawing. 

14. Science of arithmetic — percentage, metric system, and 

compound numbers ; free-hand drawing; water- 
colors. 

15. Science of arithmetic — proportion, involution and 

evolution; commercial arithmetic; drawing from 
the antique. 

16. Algebra; wood-working and carving, or modelling 

and designing. 

17. Algebra and geometry; general history of art; draw- 

ing and painting from nature. 

18. Geometry; sculpture — study of masters; drawing from 

the antique. 

19. Trigonometry; painting — study of masters; drawing 

and painting from life. 

20. Invention in mechanical, architectural, decorative, 

landscape, portrait or creative art. 



Devoted to Liberal Education. 47 

The same general principles underlie the instruction in 
this department. The study is first objectively presented, 
then it cultivates the imagination, later the reason, and 
finally the intuitional, moral and spiritual faculties. 
Arithmetic is first taught concretely or objectively, then 
as an art, and finally as a science. The science of arithme- 
tic may be acquired between the ages of twelve and six- 
teen, and should not be presented earlier. Algebra should 
be taught chiefly to cultivate the powers of abstraction 
and reasoning. " Problems" are more useful than " exam- 
ples" for solution. The latter teach methods and princi- 
ples chiefly ; the former train the reason and teach the art 
of invention and discovery more practically. Geometry 
is taught first with blocks and models, then by drawing, 
and lastly the science is presented in such a way as to 
stimulate the intuitive, the reasoning and the inventive 
qualities of mind. Drawing is made very prominent be- 
cause it educates the eye and hand, gives an idea of form, 
number and proportion, forms a basis for a good hand- 
writing, gives a groundwork for the study of many of the 
practical and mechanical arts, creates a taste for art in 
general, and for the beautiful, good and true in every- 
thing. 

The Course of Study Individual in its Appli- 
cation. 

Upon its phenomenal side it is possible, it is easy, to 
analyze the nature of a child ; to speak of the physical, 
mental, moral and spiritual natures ; to anatomize the 
body ; to divide the different processes of the intellect into 
faculties; to dissect the moral nature and to apply the 
same intellectual processes to the \fill and the soul. This 
process should be pushed generously, carefully and mi- 



48 Plan of an Institution 

nutely. We cannot too well understand the anatomy and 
physiology of the human body, the psychology of the 
human mind, the ethics of human nature, nor too well 
apprehend the life of the soul. It is necessary in shaping 
an educational institution to take into full account all con- 
tributions to human science and experience. But there is 
danger, in applying the processes of anatomy and analysis, 
of losing sight of the main object in education and in life ; 
of neglecting to recognize the real life amid all its outward 
manifestations. When we have done all we can to balance 
the powers of the body, mind and heart, so that there is 
perfect symmetry in the development, we have only been 
dealing with surface affairs. Essential as these are, the 
liberalizing element in education is not par excelle7ice in 
them. Through them the life of the soul may be influenced 
and may express itself. But the real life of man is his 
soul. That sits within and controls all his actions, 
thoughts, feelings and motives. From the soul flows all 
our outward life. When it wills to act, we live and move ; 
when it wills to think, we may be conscious. Outward 
influences perish or live as the soul wills or is. The best 
conditions in life do not compel the soul to live more 
deeply. The worst conditions cannot destroy it. Under 
the same influences one child grows into a more perfect 
life and another does not. Of two students at the same 
school each assimilates what his nature determines. A girl 
unconsciously assimilates her nature from the same food, 
the same air, the same home, the same school, the same 
course of study, and the same society, as that from which 
her brother assimilates his nature. The attributes of the 
soul common to mankind and our own individuality are 
largely our inheritance. We only deepen and expand 
what we receive. What is this inner life that lives " un- 



Devoted to Liberal Education. 49 

divided and operates unspent," which unites all our acts 
and thoughts, and though containing all is ever one — the 
same myself yesterday, to-day and always, and though 
the same, is ever growing in divinest things? Whatever 
the soul may be, a recognition of its existence first, last 
and always is the prime necessity of our being. We 
are only conscious of our thoughts ; we only mfer the 
existence and attributes of matter ; and all these are not 
to us unless we are. It is then the soul — the child, the 
man, the woman — that is the end and aim of all our en- 
deavor in education. Whatever will make its life richer 
and fuller should be sought and administered. The ele- 
ments of character, such as earnestness, mdustry, pru- 
dence, wisdom, self-control, courageous devotion to high 
aims and purposes, and a love of nature, man and God, 
must be inculcated at the price they cost. 

It will not answer, then, to adhere strictly to the letter 
of any course of study, however liberally framed, under 
all circumstances and with all pupils. The letter killeth, 
but the spirit giveth life. There are only certain general 
principles broadly stated that will be generally true in. 
their application. On the other hand, it is because the life 
of the soul is a unit that no course, however narrow in 
its studies, its methods and its aims, can literally destroy. 
The child appropriates something of value from the most 
barren curriculum, trains most of its faculties under the 
worst methods of instruction, and finds some aim in life 
above that set by the taskmaster. This is because the 
child carries over information gained in one field to an- 
other, uses information imparted for the express purpose 
of cultivating the reason or memory in cultivating the 
imagination and intuition. There is a wise system of 
compensation in our minds and hearts as well as in our 



50 Plan of an Institution 

bodies. When " one member is exalted all the other mem- 
bers are exalted with it." 



THE TECHNICAL COURSES. 

I. The Classical Course. 
n. The Scientific Course. 

The curriculum for pupils taking- these courses is the 
same as that laid down in the liberal course until the age 
of fourteen. After that time, in the classical course, the 
relative amount of language and history is increased, and 
the amount of natural science and mathematics is dimin- 
ished. This gives the literary bias. In the scientific 
course the amount of natural science and mathematics is 
increased, and of language and history diminished. This 
gives a scientific bias. 

I. The Classical Course. 

The requirements for admission to our American col- 
leges in a large measure indicate the course of preparatory 
study. But it is wiser to give young men a more liberal 
culture before entering college than is indicated by 
these requisitions. Otherwise the study of Latin, Greek 
and mathematics, which now forms so large a part of a 
college curriculum, will leave a young man at the end of 
his student-life with many of his faculties untrained, with 
only a smattering of history, literature, natural science 
and philosophy, and with his whole nature warped and 
biased. It is unfortunate that our colleges do not more 
generally admit pupils who have received a liberal educa- 
tion, such as is defined at the beginning of this paper, to 



Devoted to Liberal Education. 51 

courses of instruction parallel to the stereotyped college 
•course. 

The distinction between a college and a university 
is important in this connection. The college receives 
pupils at a younger age, with less maturity of mind and 
with less training, who have pursued a classical course of 
study in some preparatory school ; offers a prescribed 
course of study covering four years, which is a continua- 
tion and enlargement of the preparatory course and gives 
a diploma certifying that the pupil has completed the 
prescribed course. The university receives pupils of a 
greater age, with more maturity of mind and with more 
thorough training, who have completed a classical course, 
a liberal course or a scientific course of study, provides its 
pupils with such opportunities for general or special study 
or research as they shall elect and be qualified to pursue, 
fixes no limit to the length of the course, and gives a 
diploma which specifies the quantity and quality of the 
work done and the subjects studied. The college will 
continue as the highest classical training-school in our 
educational system. The university will receive its stu- 
dents from all the higher training-schools, whether classi- 
cal, liberal or scientific. In the university the courses of 
study are elective, general or special, technical or profes- 
sional. In the training-schools, whether colleges or acad- 
emies, the courses of study are largely prescribed. 

In the classical course eight years are devoted to 
the study of Latin, in place of four or five as in most 
schools. A few classical and fitting schools in Massa- 
chusetts require eight years of Latin. The objects to 
Tdc accomplished by this study are not to translate so 
many books of Caesar or Virgil, to learn so many par- 
adigms or rules of s^mtax and so many exceptions 



52 Plan of aft Institution 

in inflection or construction, but rather — (i) A general 
knowledge of inflections and constructions, to be used as 
a help in the study of English grammar. (2) Such a 
knowledge of Latin words and roots as will enable the 
student to understand their English derivatives and equiv- 
alents. (3) Such facility in reading Latin as is necessary 
to gain a Latin vocabulary, and the ability to read ordinary 
Latin at sight. The practice of reading a large quantity 
of Latin, and of reading it "■ at sight," will insure better re- 
sults than the recital of grammar rules, translating me- 
chanically with the aid of grammar, lexicon or teacher, 
and then memorizing the translation. A ready reading 
knowledge of Latin is of great value in science, law, medi- 
cine and letters. (4) The study and translation of Latin 
classical authors affords an excellent basis for the study of 
Roman history, law, art, science and literature. After 
two years the object of the study of Latin is only inciden- 
tally a knowledge of the language itself, but principally a 
knowledge of the Roman people and their institutions,. 
The study of philology is reserved for the college course. 
(5) A knowledge of Latin is a key to the French, Italian, 
Spanish and other languages, and is essential to a student, 
of the science of language. All these objects may be gained 
in such a way as to cultivate the intellectual and moral 
natures to a very high degree. 

A knowledge of Greek, German and French is neces- 
sary to a literary, scientific or professional career. The 
study of history, English literature and natural science,, 
though rarely required for admission to college, is re- 
quired by the very nature of the mind and heart of every 
youth and as much time is given to these subjects as is. 
possible. 

Our young men and women hurry into business and 



Devoted to Liberal Education. 53 

society with bodies, minds and characters half-formed or 
ill-formed, at an age when the true value of an education 
is just beginning to make its mark. Every effort should 
be used to extend the period of the growth of the body, 
mind and heart, and to make our schools felt by old and 
young as mdispensable nurseries of all that is good, noble, 
beautiful and eternal in life. It is better to begin a busi- 
ness career, to enter upon professional studies or to 
undertake a university training at the age of twenty, than 
younger. Society can have few legitimate demands upon 
a young woman at an earlier period. If a ygung man is 
fairly settled in his profession at the age of twenty-six or 
twenty-eight, he has upwards of thirty years of active ser- 
vice to look forward to, in which he will accomplish the 
more for a thorough preparation. There is not so much a 
demand for more men in the learned professions, as men 
whose native abilities are great and have been well trained. 
Native ability is the result of inherited training and the 
school-age is the most important era in individual growth. 
Pupils who enter the various colleges will leave the 
preparatory school, on the average, at the age of eighteen 
years. Those who go directly to a university will com- 
plete the course in the preparatory school by the twen- 
tieth year. 

XL The Scientific Course. 

There is at this juncture in the educational world, when 
material, industrial, mechanical, scientific and intellectual 
prosperity is well-nigh universal, a great demand for agri- 
cultural, scientific, technical and commercial schools. 
This demand in itself is legitimate. Again, the reaction 
from the study of literature, history, philosophy, ethics 
and theolosfv in favor of the studv of the exact and 



54 Plan of an Institution 

concrete sciences is still widening. The great progress 
recently made in the use of steam power and electricity, 
in all the mechanic arts, m scientific discovery and in- 
vestigation, is stimulating greater endeavor in the same 
direction and is drawing our youth in large numbers 
into the mechanical pursuits and the physical sciences. 
The material and commercial prosperity which has fol- 
lowed this activity in science and invention affords au 
object of ambition to our youth, which well-nigh hides 
from view all other objects in life. Our aims are ma- 
terial, positive and commercial. Our age is, as others 
have been, an age of materialism, positivism and sensual- 
ism, if not of irreligion, infidelity and sensuality. The 
Roman Empire went down because its wealth and afflu- 
ence, its material and sensual development, overcame the 
institutions which built up the moral and religious charac- 
ter of its people. With this condition of affairs flagrantly 
apparent in every section of our country, and especially in 
the large cities, we may well ask, " What is our duty in edu- 
cation ?" Shall we furnish means which will make sharper 
and more skilful mechanics, inventors, manufacturers, mer- 
chants, bankers, brokers and men of affairs? However 
much we need all these, have we not a greater need, the 
greatest need in any age, of honest, righteous and noble 
citizens, pure and holy men and women ? America has 
the best soil, the best climate, the best water communica- 
tions, the best coal-fields, the best water power, the best 
timber, the best ores, the best location. Her material 
prosperity is now without example. Her future material 
prosperity is at the bidding of her people. Her popula- 
tion is doubling once in a quarter of a century. What 
then, and what only, is our need ? Men and women born 
of God, whose single aim is to build up God's kingdom 



Devoted to Liberal Education, 55 

on earth, and who to this end preserve their health, train 
their mind, open their soul, rear and educate families, 
accumulate wealth, organize societies, defend the republic, 
maintain the sacred inviolabihty of conscience, and "wor- 
ship God in the beauty of holiness." We do not want 
more men, but better men. We do not want more wealth 
so much as wisdom to use that which we have. 

Amid all the influences which draw young men and 
young women away from the higher Christian life, shall 
we not establish our schools in the name of God as a firm 
and unyielding protest against those influences which, 
destroy both body and soul, and establish them as an index 
pointing to the higher life ? The best school is not too 
good. Anything short of the best is the betrayal of a 
great trust. The best course of study is not too good. 
The liberal course is better than the scientific. If, how- 
ever, we fail to induce all students to enter that course, 
the scientific course will satisfy many, and will hold them 
near the path of duty. 

The scientific course is divided into four series of sub- 
jects: (i) history, literature and philosophy; (2) chemis- 
try and natural history ; (3) physics and mechanics ; (4) 
mathematics and drawing. The course should be broadly 
scientific and practical. The observational, experimental 
and inventional capacities should be cultivated very largely. 
The study of history, of mental, moral and political science 
and of literature will leave the mind not void of a literary, 
moral and religious training. But the course is material 
in its tendencies. 

Business Course. 

The studies offered in the other courses are all that a 
liberal institution can provide. Those pupils who wish to> 



56 • Plan of an InstihUion 

take short or special courses may, under proper restric- 
•tions, be allowed to do so. But an institution which is 
founded on the foregoing principles is a most effective 
protest against one-sided education, or short roads up the 
hill of knowledge. 

After the intellectual, moral and spiritual life has been 
founded in a liberal education each individual will devote 
himself to some special occupation or profession, will 
make a specialty of some subject in the line of his work or 
research and will pursue other subjects in proportion to 
their near relationship to his chosen specialty. 

Division of Pupils into Grades, Classes, and 

Sections. 

All the students are divided into five grades : 

Grade i , . . .With pupils from 4-7 years. 

" 2 " " " 7-10 " 

3 • " " " 10-13 " 

" 4 " " " 13-16 " 

" 5 " " " 16-20 " 

The fifth grade is divided into four classes, the other 
grades into three classes, each corresponding with the 
school year. Each class may be divided into two sec- 
tions. In the fifth grade these sections may be kept 
at the same stage of advancement, but in the other grades 
one section should be half a school year in advance of the 
other, so that pupils who fail in one or more studies may 
drop back a half year and not a whole year in those 
studies. 

The following chart shows at a glance most of the fore- 
going plan of study and the principles which underlie it. 



'Historical 

Department. 



LIBERAL 
COURSE. 



LITERARY 
BRANCHES. 



'Philosophy^ 

Menial and Moral. 



History {propej). 



Ancient and Modern 
Languages. 



Language J 

Department, i 



Nat. Science 
Department. 



SCIENTIFIC 
BRANCHES 



Mathematical 
Department. 



' Chemisiry^ Botany, 
Zoology, Physiology. 



Physics, Astronomy, \ 
Geology, Physical I 
Geography. 



'Mathematics {proper). 



Fine Arts, 

Drawing, etc. 



Talks about 

Domestic 

and Familiar 

Affairs. 



Talks on the 
Habits and 

Life of 
Animals. 



>JRST G'RADE, 4-7 Years. 



Talks on the 

Beauty, 

Poetry and 

Morality in 

Nature, 



Talks on 
Man, Mam- 
mals, Birds, 
Leaves, 

Flowers. 



Colors, 
Forms, 
Relative 
Sizes. 



Talks about 

Adventures, 

Peoples and 

Places of 

to-day, 



Talks on 
Reptiles, 
Fishes, 
Insects, 
Shells, 
Plants. 



Combination 

of Simple 

Forms, 

Use of 

Pencil, 



Talks about 

Places, 
Relics and 
Peoples of 
the Past, 



Reading by 

the Word 

Method, 

Writing 

Script. 



Talks on 
Rocks, 
Minerals, 
Waters, 
Atmosphere, 
Nature. 



Drawing 
Lines. 



SECOND GRADE, 7-10 Years. 



Readings and Writing. 
American Modern Ancient 

European Biography. 
Biography. 



Biography. 



Vocabulary 
enlarged by 

reading 

drawn from 

every-day 

life. 



nd Writing. 



Practi 

the Simple 
Sentence, 
Spelling, 

Reading of 

Biography. 



Writing 
English Sen- 
tences, 
Spelling, 
Reading of 
Poetry. 



Reading and Writing 
Structure 
and Habits 
of Animals, 

Structure 

and Uses of 

Plants. 



Drawing 
from the 
Fiat, 
Modelling 
Writing, 



Descriptive 

Physical 

Geography, 

Chemistry of 

Common 

Life. 



Geometry 
as the art of 
Measuring. 



Drawing 
Natural 
Objects, 
Modelling, 
Writing. 




Geometrical 

Drawing, 

Modelling, 

Writing. 



THIRD GRADE, 10-13 Year 



American 
History, 
Epochs 
igth — r7th 
Centuries. 



Writing 

Descriptions 

and Stories, 

Reading 

good 

Prose. 



Anatomy, 



Human 
Physiology. 



Inventive 
Geometry 

and 
Arithmetic 
Concretely. 



Free-hand 
Drawing, 
Modelling, 
Writing. 




Reading 
Ballads and 

Lyrics, 

Composition 

twice. 



Comparative 
Anatomy, 



General 
Zoology. 



Arithmetic 

applied 

to every-day 

affairs. 



Perspective 
Drawing, 
Modelling, 
Designing. 



Renascence 

Period, 
17th — 15 th 
Centuries. 



Latin 

Construction 

three times 

a week. 



Poetry, 

Composition 

twice. 



Descriptive 

and 

Commercial 

Botany. 



Minerals, 
Geology. 



Arithmetic 
.s a Science, 
Four Rules 

and 
Fractions. 



Mechanical 
Drawing, 



FOURTH GRADE, 13-16 Years. 



Medieeval 
History, 
Epochs 
14th — 6th 
Centuries. 



Latin . 
Translation 

and 
Grammar, 
:wice a week 



Application 
of Knowl- 
edge 
of Latin 
to English 
Grammar 
three times. 



Physical 
Geography, 



Arithmetic 
as a Science, 

Denomina- 
tive Numbers 

Involution, 

Evolution. 



Free-hand 

Drawing, 

Water 

Colors. 



Ancient 
History, 
500 A.D., 
2000 11. c. 



French 

three times 

a week. 



Analysis 
of English 
Rhetoric 



General 

Chemistry, 
Qualitative 

Analysis 
(Inorganic). 



Arithmetic 
as a Science, 
Proportion. 

Commercial 
Arithmetic. 



Drawing 

from the 

Antique and 

from 

Models. 



General 
History, 
Tracing 

Races, Cus- 
toms and 

Institutions. 



French 

three times 

a week. 



Analysis 

of 

Authors, 

Literature 

twice. 



Light, Heat, 

Electricity, 

Mechanics, 

Molar 

Physics. 



Algebra. 



Carving, 
Muddling 



Designing. 



FIFTH GRADE, 16-20 Yrars. 



Political 
Economy. 



English 
Industrial 

and 

Political 

Institutions. 



Early 

English 

Literature, 

Composition 

twice. 



English 

Social, 

Moral and 

Religious 

Institutions, 



Institutions. 

German 

three times 

a week. 



Later 

English 

Literature, 

Composition 

twice. 



Mental 
Philosophy. 



American 
Institutions. 



Moral 

Philosophy, 
Essential 
Religious 

Principles. 



Organic 
Chemistry. 



Historical 
Geology. 



Algebra, 



General 

History of 

An, 

Studies from 

Nature. 



Thi- Physics 
of Life. 



Geometry, 



General 

Literature, 

-vith French 

and German, 

Readings. 



Vegetable 
Anatomy 
and 
Physiology, 
Comparative 
Zoology and 
Physiology. 



Philosophy 
of Style. 
Poetry, 
Pure 
Literature, 
Invention. 



Man's Place 
in Nature, 



Psychology. 



Study 
of Masters 
(Sculpture), 
Drawing 
from the 
Antique. 



Trigonom- 
etry and. 

Conic 
Sections. 



Study 
of Masters 
(Painting), 
Drawing and 
Painting 
from Life. 



Mechanical, 
Architec- 
tural, 
Decorative, 
Landscape, 
Portrait and 
Creative Art. 



Devoted to Liberal Education. 



57 





FOURTH GRADE. 
T3— 16 Years. 


FIFTH GRADE, 16—20 Years. 




I 


Latin 
Mythology, 

Social and 

Domestic 

Life. 


Latin 
Historians. 

Caesar, 
Cato, etc. 


Latin 
Historians. 

Cicero, 
Livy, Sal- 
lust, Nepos. 


Latin 
Poetry and 

Ethics. 
„ Virgil, 
Horace, etc. 


Latin 
Oratory 
and 
Philosophy. 
Cicero, 
Pliny, 
Seneca. 


Review 

of Latin 

Literature. 


CLASSICAL 
COURSE 

Same as the 
Libcnil Course ■ 
to the ■id Ciass 
■of the Fourth 


2 

3 

■ 


Greek and 
Roman 
History. 


General 
History. 
Tracing 

Races, Cus- 
toms and 

Institutions 


Greek 

Lessons. 

Xenophon. 


Greek 

Prose 

Writers. 

Herodotus, 

Thucy- 
dides, Plato. 


Greek 
Poetry. 
Homer. 
Lyrics, 
Drama. 


Greek 

Poetry. 

Review of 

Greek 
Literature. 


Grade, 


German 

or 
French. 


German 

or 
French. 


Astronomy. 
Geology. 


Botany. 
Zoology. 


English 
Literature, 
Prose and 

Poetry. 


Moral 
Philosophy. 

Mental 
Philosophy. 




4 


General 
Chemistry. 


General 
Physics. 


Algebra 

and 
Drawing. 


Geometry 

and 
Drawing. 


Trigonom- 
etry and 
Drawing. 


Review of 

Mathema- 
tics. 




I 

2 


Ancient 
History. 
English 
Analysis. 


General 
History. 
Rhetoric. 


English 
Literature 
and Com- 
position. 


Political 

Economy. 

American 

Institutions 


American 
Institu- 
tions. 
Mental 
Philosophy. 


Moral 

Philosophy. 

Essential 

Religious 

Principles. 


SCIENTIFIC 
COURSE. 


General 
Chemistry. 


Qualitative 
Chemical 
Analysis. 


Quantita- 
tive 
Chemical 
Analysis. 


Organic 

Chemistry. 

Botany. 


Zoology. 
Commer- 
cial 
Chemistry, 


Chemistry 
of the Arts. 
Chemical 
Engineer- 
ing. 


Same as the 
Liberal Course 
to the ■2d Class 
of the Fourth 
Grade. 


3 


Molar 

Physics. 

Mechanics 

of Solids 

and Fluids. 


Molecular 

Physics. 

Sound, 

Light, 

Heat and 

Electricity. 


Strength 

of 
Materials. 
Dynamics 

and 
Hydraulics. 


Applica- 
tions of 
Heat and 
Electricity. 
Architec- 
ture and 
Construc- 
tion. 


Astronomy 

and 
Geology. 


Mechanics 
and Mining 
Engineer- 
ing. 




4 


Mensura- 
tion and 
Inventive 
Geometry. 
Drawing. 


Algebra 

and 

Perspective 

Drawing. 


Geometry, 
and Geo- 
metrical 
Drawing. 


Trigonom- 
etry and 
Mechanical 
Drawing. 


Descriptive 
Geometry 

and 
Surveying. 


Mechanics 
and Civil 
Engineer- 
ing. 



58 Plan of an Institution 

Practical Features of the Plan. 

I. Number of Exercises and Studies. — Each pupil doing- 
full work will have four studies throughout the entire 
course : one in history, one in language, one in natural 
science and one in mathematics and drawing. The 
number of exercises will be four each day, or five per 
week in each study in all the grades below the fifth; 
in the fifth grade four exercises a week in each subject. 
No " extras" should be permitted. Penmanship and draw- 
ing form part of the regular work in fine art; reading 
and spelling are included under the head of " language." 
Singing is a regular class-room exercise conducted by 
each class teacher. Gymnastics and vocal culture are 
combined and occupy short breaks in the school ses- 
sions. Several important advantages follow this small 
number of exercises : (i) Much delay and confusion, in 
constantly changing classes, is avoided. (2) Pupils are 
not required to remain so long in the school-room. (3) 
More time is given in school and at home for individual 
and independent study. Ordinarily pupils are reciting^ 
most of the time while in school; learn almost entirely 
from the recitation ; learn to rely on the class exercise, 
or the teacher, for help through all difficult and whole- 
some tasks. Perhaps there is no abuse in our school sys- 
tems less excusable or more easily remedied than this. 
Pupils should be encouraged to make their work largely 
individual, relying on no one for more aid than is neces- 
sary to the accomplishment of the required work. Teach- 
ers should encourage pupils to carry on independent lines 
of thought, reading or investigation continually and 
should give only such suggestions as seem prudent, — 
remembering always to follow the pupil in all his work,. 



Devoted to Liberal Education. 59 

that he may not simply wander about or stray outside of 
his subject. The teacher should be unconsciously a con- 
stant guide, companion and inspiration. We cannot too 
much dwell upon the importance of cultivating true self- 
reliance and complete self-government as prime factors in 
the formation of character. 

2. Ecoioviy of Tvnc a7td Energy.— li each pupil carries 
along the four subjects throughout the whole course, 
greater progress will result than from an intermittent or 
irregular study of many subjects. Again, if each subject 
is presented psychologically — that is, to the various facul- 
ties as they expand — and progressively passes from the 
simple to the complex, from the concrete to the abstract, 
from the phenomenal to the real — still more time and 
labor will be utilized. Most of the time that is now spent 
upon arithmetic, grammar, geography, history, is worse 
than wasted. The memory does not retain the facts. 
The reason is not ripe for culture. The mind is not 
only stupefied, but the work which should be done is 
almost wholly omitted. In the foregoing plan, however, 
the four studies are so co-ordinated that each helps the 
other most effectively and most naturally opens and 
streno^thens the whole nature. 

3. Course of Study Liberal throughout. — Each grade or 
cycle in the course of study should be complete in itself ; 
should round out a liberal education so far as the pupil is 
developed to receive it. The most complete or most lib- 
eral cultivation of the whole nature is secured only when 
every portion is Hberal in itself. We do not exercise one 
arm until it is strong and useful and leave the other to 
paralyze ; then endeavor to restore the second to health 
and strength. We develop our arms synchronously. In 
education the best results cannot be obtained by training 



6o Plan of an Institution 

one set of faculties year after year, leaving another equally 
important set, ready for cultivation, nearly or quite un- 
used. The perfect life is perfect in every part and at all 
times. An incidental advantage attends this arrangement 
of study. Many pupils are obliged to leave school at 
thirteen and sixteen years of age. Such will not be left 
with their education at loose ends, with great omissions 
and with much work unfinished. Those who early leave 
the schools can least afford to lose the training given by 
the natural science, the history and the art instruction. 

4. The System of Examination, often if not generally in 
use, consists in written answers to crucial questions given 
m each subject at the end of each month and also at •the 
•end of each term or half-year. The object of these exam- 
inations is fourfold : (i) They cause pupils to study more 
than they otherwise would. Pupils are constantly dread- 
ing these examinations, fearing that the result will reduce 
their "standing" or prevent promotion. (2) The percent- 
age results of the examinations are recorded and form a 
considerable portion of the pupil's standing. The stand- 
ing is forwarded to parents and is open to the inspection 
of teachers, trustees and committees. The percentage 
results form data for promotion and graduation. (3) 
These examinations afford some real evidence to the 
teacher of a pupil's progress, and (4) are an exercise in 
the expression of thought upon paper. But the principal 
effect upon the pupil is to inspire a dread of the examina- 
tion, a fear of the result and anxiety lest parent or guar- 
dian give some rebuke. These elements — fear, dread and 
anxiety — are powerless in the upbuilding of character. 
Fear is not a virtue, but a necessity of our being — a neg- 
ative quality. It is not the dread of evil but the love of 
good that regenerates the life. It is not what we fear, 



Devoted to Liberal Education. 6i 

but what we do and what we aspire to be, that strength- 
ens and creates us. — In girls' or mixed schools there are 
physiological obstacles to this method which are insuper- 
able. If the examinations come one week in four, it will 
happen that one fourth of the girls and young ladies are 
rendered totally unfit, by their physical condition, to en- 
dure such a mental and physical strain. Again, these 
periods of monthly anxiety and excitement cause the 
monthly indisposition to come prematurely or to con- 
tinue ; so that nearly half the female pupils are physically 
unfitted for their work when they need the most strength. 
Many observant teachers will testify to a frequent partial 
or total failure in examination of an excellent pupil, which 
can be attributed solely to the above cause. What is 
true of female pupils is true to a greater degree of 
lady teachers, on whom a much greater stress is laid. 
The work of correcting, marking and recording the ex- 
amination papers of a grade must occupy from fifteen to 
twenty -five hours each month. This work is done either 
at the close of school-hours or at night. No work is more 
wearing. With all teachsrs the energies which should be 
devoted to the direct welfare of the pupils and to self- 
improvement are wasted away. These examinations are 
generally tests of the amount of text-book memorizing 
that has been done, and do not discover the practical 
knowledge assimilated for future use ; do not discover 
the development of the faculties nor the honest efforts of 
pupils whose mental acumen is inferior, but whose work 
is conscientious and faithful. The examinations encour- 
age those who have good intellects to rejoice in their 
superiority and discourage those who are conscientious, 
faithful and true, though not so quick to learn. They 
put a premium on smartness and a discount on moral 



■62 Plan of an Institution 

worth. Furthermore, severe monthly examinations and 
yearly examinations cause a student to become irregular 
and uneven in his work. Students will neglect work 
until the approach of an examination and then will 
" cram" the mind under great pressure, pass the examina- 
tion and forget what they have learned. Such mental 
processes are destructive to sound learning and wisdom^ 
to good habits of thought and to good morals. Moreover, 
no mathematical system of marking can apply to the in- 
tellectual, moral and spiritual growth of a child. An 
attempt to measure the moral qualities of a child — hon- 
esty, purity, love, charity, and the spiritual nature from 
which these flow — is sacrilege. To thrust this barrier be- 
tween the teacher and those whom he is to love and help, 
is to defeat the main purposes of a school at the outset. 
The true teacher lives, as already said, in an atmosphere 
where truth, love, beauty and holiness are the potent and 
ever-present sources of endeavor. Influences like these 
make the work of a teacher and his pupils enduring. 

The standing of a pupil is always most thoroughly 
known from day to day by his bearing, his recitation, his 
attention, his laboratory work and his written exercises. 
A pupil should continue with his class until his teacher 
and superintendent are convinced that his progress will be 
greater in a lower class. When a pupil has satisfactorily 
completed a term's work in any subject he is credited 
with the same. Each teacher makes notes from tmie 
to time on the pupil's work, and at the end of each term 
or half-year, with these notes in hand and with a con- 
sciousness of the real progress of the pupil, estimates the 
pupil's standing for the term. These estimates are best 
made in the expressions excellent, good, fair or medium, 
poor and very poor. Records of these estimates are kept 



Devoted to Liberal Education. 63 

for the use of teachers, committees and parents. But no 
record should be forwarded to a parent, except in special 
cases, when the conscious and united sympathy of a 
teacher and the parents is necessary. Even then it is 
better for the teacher to visit the parents. Parents should 
seek their information concerning their children by visit- 
ing the school. 

Reviews of work passed over, in the sense that a 
pupil goes over the same work a second time, are gene- 
rally detrimental. But the work in each study should so 
progress that each step is both an advance and a review. 
Each step forward will utilize the work of previous days. 
Each term's work forms a foundation upon which to build 
higher. The full value of a study comes only by co-ordi- 
nating the different steps continually, so that at the end 
something real is accomplished. Nor is it important to 
remember details. Rather we should be sure that the 
individual data are rightly used at the time. Not what a 
pupil remembers, but what he does and what he becomes, 
is our care. Written exercises which in themselves brmg 
out the pupil's grasp of a whole subject will naturally be 
included in any good teacher's work. 

5. Method of Promotion. — When an average pupil has 
completed the work, say, of the first grade, he is admitted 
to the second grade, where he remains three years and 
takes four studies each year. If he complete this work 
satisfactorily, he is then advanced to the third grade. 
But if, on account of sickness or absence, he lose a part 
of the work, he continues in the grade until all deficien- 
cies are cancelled. If a student, because of feeble health 
or mental dulness, cannot pursue more than three or 
two studies, he is allowed to do so, and will continue 
in the grade, with three studies, four years ; with fewer 



64 Plan of an Institution 

studies, a longer time. If a student have good capacity 
in one study and not m anothier, he is advanced in that 
study to the end of the grade and when he shall have 
caught up in the other studies, he will be promoted to 
the next higher grade. A pupil of rare ability might 
accomplish the work of a grade in less than three years. 
Promotions within the grade will take place regularly 
once in a half school-year and such promotions will be 
made independently m each of the four studies. But 
the promotions from one grade to another cannot be made 
until all the work of that grade in all the subjects is satis- 
factorily accomplished. Some elasticity of this sort is 
necessary to avoid the cast-iron method of most public 
schools. Generally promotions are made once a year 
for all pupils in all subjects. Some pupils can do the 
year's work well, others poorly, and others are just on the 
margin of being dropped. If these last are dropped be- 
cause of deficiency m one study or m all studies, they are 
discouraged, disgraced and often leave school or spend 
a year in listlessness. If such doubtful pupils are pro- 
moted, they are not qualified to do the work of their class ;. 
they hinder the progress of others. Generally delicacy 
on the part of a teacher or a committee keeps doubtful 
students along year after year, each successive year leav- 
ing them farther behind. When classes thus promoted 
reach the highest grade, the difference between the best 
and the poorest pupil can scarcely be marked on a scale 
of 100. With the elastic method explained above, a pupil 
does what he can do well and is promoted m each study 
when ready for promotion. 

6. The Education of Girls. — The necessity of recog- 
nizing sex in education rests upon a physiological differ- 
ence of function, and a consequent difference in the quan- 



Devoted to Liberal £ducation. 65 

tity and quality of intellectual training. The girl, as 
already stated, assimilates her nature from the same home, 
the same food, the same society which furnish the material 
of her brother's growth. • 

Why not, then, the same school and the same course 
of study? The liberal school makes its care of the health 
and the physical development, its intellectual, moral and 
spiritual education, individual. It recognizes the exist- 
ence in girls of functions which are peculiar to them and 
effectually removes the fear, well-grounded in existing 
systems of education, lest the development of the whole 
organism, in a normal and healthy manner, be checked by 
overwork or unceasing application. Grant that girls are 
more susceptible to the influence of artificial incentives, 
such as "prizes" and "marks," than boys, and are more 
injured by them ; the liberal school discards all such stim- 
ulus. As has already been shown, moreover, periodic 
examinations are not employed and formal promotions 
and graduations are omitted. 

No system of ranking is used by which comparison 
may be made, but each girl is encouraged to be responsi- 
ble to herself alone for her intellectual, moral and physical 
development. The true teacher will discover and make 
allowance for physiological disturbance, and the elasticity 
of the plan of study will permit a girl of feeble health to 
accomplish the same work as her brother in a longer time, 
by taking two or three instead of four daily studies. In 
short, the co-education of the sexes, admitted to be normal 
in the family, is, by a liberal school, rendered possible in 
intellectual training also, by the individuality of all work 
assigned. 



66 Plan of an Institution 

The Organization. 

Board of Trustees. — A few men, in active and intelligent 
sympathy with the aims and methods of liberal education, 
who will give their attention and energies to the needs of 
the institution, form the most effective board of trustees. 
This board should hold the property of the school in trust ; 
manage all its financial affairs ; fix the salaries oi its teach- 
ers and the tuition of its pupils ; thoroughly acquaint itself 
with the educational work of the school and recommend 
to the faculty any changes or additions deemed necessary 
or advisable ; act as an advisory body with the faculty ; 
elect or dismiss members of the faculty ; confirm or reject 
any recommendation made by the faculty to elect or dis- 
miss a teacher or inferior officer. 

The Faculty. — This body will comprise eight professors 
or heads of departments. The eight departments are (i) 
philosophy, (2) history, (3) ancient languages, (4) modern 
languages, (5) chemistry and biology, (6) physics, geol- 
ogy and applied mathematics, (7) mathematics proper, 
and (8) fine arts. The faculty shall constitute a board, to 
which will be intrusted all questions concerning the in- 
struction and government of the institution. The faculty 
shall nominate to the trustees all teachers required ; rec- 
ommend to the trustees the removal of unsatisfactory 
teachers ; make such changes in the courses of study as it 
sees fit ; adopt all necessary text-books and other appli- 
ances used and purchased by pupils ; determine methods 
of instruction ; assign the work of teachers ; make regula- 
tions for the government of pupils ; admit, classify, pro- 
mote and graduate pupils ; and shall ask counsel of the 
trustees on important matters. The members of the facul- 
ty shall teach their respective subjects to the highest grade 



Devoted to Liberal Education. 67 

of the school. The principal shall be the executive officer 
of the faculty and shall have one vote in its proceedings. 
He is the intellectual, moral, executive and liberal head of 
the school. He shall represent the school on all public oc- 
casions ; thoroughly inspect every part of the institution ; 
report such defects and recommendations as he wishes to 
the faculty ; teach the classes in metaphysics, ethics and 
religious history ; preside at the faculty meetings ; act as 
the medium of communication between the faculty and 
the trustees ; and consult with parents concerning their 
children. The professor of history shall superintend the 
instruction in history in all the grades. The professor of 
ancient languages shall be the head of the classical course, 
and shall superintend the instruction in the Latin and 
Greek belonging to that course. The professor of mod- 
ern languages shall superintend the instruction in Eng- 
lish, French and German in all the grades and the Latin 
instruction below the second class of the fourth grade. 
The professor of chemistry and biology shall superintend 
the instruction in all the natural sciences below the second 
■class of the fourth grade and the instruction in his sub- 
jects in the higher classes. The professor of physics shall 
be the head of the scientific course and shall superintend 
the instruction in his subjects in all classes above the first 
class of the fourth grade. The professors of mathematics 
.and fine arts shall respectively superintend the instruction 
in their departments. 

Superintendence, — The principal is, therefore, general 
superintendent of all the courses. The other seven pro- 
fessors are superintendents of their various departments. 
Each member of the faculty shall teach four out of five 
periods in each day's session. During the fifth or vacant 
period, which shall occur at a different time each day in 



68 Plaii of an Institution 

the week, he shall visit classes belonging to his depart- 
ment, and shall aid his assistants in their methods and 
general work. He shall meet the teachers of his depart- 
ment once or twice a week, to give them directions in 
methods of instruction, in the subject-matter of the lessons 
and in discipline. He shall recommend to the faculty such 
changes in the course of study as are deemed necessary 
in his department ; shall nominate to the faculty teachers 
to fill vacancies among his assistants and recommend the 
removal of unsuitable teachers. All cases of discipline 
which may not be satisfactorily adjusted by an assistant 
teacher shall be reported to the superintendent of the 
department in which they occur and may be referred by 
him to the faculty. Parents who seek information con- 
cerning work in a particular department may be referred 
to the superintendent by the principal. Each superin- 
tendent is responsible to the faculty for all his work and 
shall conform to the expressed wishes of the faculty in 
every particular. This plan of superintendence insures 
the most intelligent supervision, a psychological course of 
study, a progressive and thorough presentation of each 
subject and consequently a great economy of time and 
energy. With the usual method the head of a school or 
the superintendent is between two unknown fields and 
cannot co-ordinate his work with the previous or subse- 
quent instruction. 

Assistant Teachers. — Each grade below the fifth is 
provided with four assistants, three of whom shall have 
charge of class-rooms in which are study-desks to accom- 
modate the three classes of the grade. The fourth teacher 
shall have charge of a room provided with seats to ac- 
commodate the pupils of the whole grade during their 
general exercises. One of these teachers shall instruct in 



Devoted to Liberal Edztcation. 69 

the history subjects ; a second in the languages ; a third 
in the natural sciences ; and the fourth in mathematics 
and art. One of the four teachers, who is chosen clerical 
head of the grade, has charge of all records, reports and the 
routine work within the grade. But the instruction is in 
the hands of the superintendents and their assistants ; and 
any serious case of discipline is reported to the superin- 
tendent under whose assistant it occurs. 

The advantages of this division of labor among the 
assistant teachers are as follows: (i) Each head of a de- 
partment will be able to supervise the entire work in his 
subjects, to aid most effectively his assistant teachers and 
to gain their complete co-operation with him in a common 
work. Nothing could be better calculated to insure intel- 
ligent enthusiasmx and sympathetic devotion to a common 
purpose. (2) Each teacher can then devote himself to 
those subjects in which he is best qualified by taste, 
ability and experience to instruct. No teacher can teach 
enthusiastically or successfully on all subjects. Most can 
instruct well in only a few. This division of the curricu- 
lum into four departments, each taught by a separate set 
of teachers, makes a division of labor which will insure 
better scholarship in the branches taught, more prepara- 
tion for the work of instruction and greater ability to 
accomplish the aims of a true teacher. (3) Each pupil will 
remain under the same teacher in each of the four studies 
for three years. This enables the teacher to become quite 
thoroughly acquainted with each pupil and interested in 
his whole development. The teacher in this way can 
watch the effect of every influence upon each boy or girl 
and in a large measure make his instruction and guidance 
individual and most effective. The character of a teacher 
will then make an indelible impression upon the child's 



70 Plan of an Institution 

mind. With the usual method of changing teachers at 
every promotion of the pupils, whether once in six months 
or once a year, much of the work of the teacher is blindly 
done and no lasting sympathy between teacher and pupiL 
is created. But it is not well that a teacher have pupils, 
much longer than three years. Each teacher learns to 
adapt her instruction to pupils of a certain degree of 
maturity. It would be difficult for one person to teach 
well one class of fourteen- and another of six-year-old stu- 
dents. (4) This plan obviates the necessity of having itin- 
erant teachers of singing, of drawing, of writing, of calis- 
thenics and of elocution. Teachers of language are chosen, 
who are qualified to cultivate the understanding and its 
vocal expression. Teachers in mathematics and drawing 
are selected who will give suitable instruction in drawing 
and penmanship. The singing is a class or grade exercise 
conducted by the class teacher or by that one of the four 
teachers of the grade who is best qualified. The calis- 
thenics belong in the gymnasium. 

In the management of the department-system the school 
buildings should be arranged in suites of four rooms on. 
the same floor and adjoining one another. Each suite of 
rooms should be provided with all the apparatus, collec- 
tions, books and other appliances necessary for the in- 
struction in the grade which is to occupy the suite. (See 
diagram, page 71.) To avoid moving young pupils from 
room to room the teachers of a grade may pass from one 
room to another. Each grade contains three classes and 
each class is divided into two sections. Each teacher,, 
therefore, meets six sections each day and each pupil 
spends four periods of the school session in class exercise 
and has two periods for individual work. The remainder 
of his studying must be done at home. 



Devoted to Liberal Education, 



n 



Language Room, 

30 X 30. 
Desks for Class i. 



Grade 
Library, 



Apparatus in / 

Math, and Draw. I Charts, etc. 



Desk. 



Room for 

Mathematics 

and 

Drawing, 

30 X 30. 

Desks for Class 2. 



Desk. 

Natural Science 

Room, 

30 X 30. 

Desks for Class 3. 



Apparatus and 
Cabinet, 
10 X 30. 



Boys' Door. 



History Room, 

30 X 36. 
Assembly Room 
for the Grade. 




Passage. 



Boys' 


Girls' 


Dressing 


Dressing 


Room, 


Room, 


10 X 24. 

\ 


10 X 24. 

/ 



Girls' 

Hall, 

10 X 40. 



Girls' Door. 



General Hall for 

all Grades (with 

Stairways), 

well lighted. 



Diagram showing a possible arrangement of the rooms ol any grade below the fifth. 
The rooms are supposed to occupy one corner of one of the floors of a building. Four 
such suites of rooms would be possible on each floor. 



72 Plan of an Institution 

In colleges and universities the instruction is divided 
among many departments and among many professors 
and instructors in each department. In the fifth grade 
of our prospective school the number of departments 
is reduced to eight and in the lower grades to four. It 
may be objected that the department-plan will make spe- 
cialists of teachers ; that speciaHsts will see the subjects 
which they teach in a magnified and false light ; and will 
lose sight of the general culture of their pupils. Any objec- 
tions on this ground are equally vahd in our higher insti- 
tutions. The department-system in primary and secon- 
dary schools is carried too far when one teacher is pro- 
vided for arithmetic, another for drawing, another for 
penmanship, another for singing, another for elocution, 
another for grammar, another for history and so on ; and 
when a teacher instructs a large number of grades or 
classes. Itineracy in teaching is a worse extreme than the 
old system, where one teacher teaches everything in the 
curriculum. But the best results are obtained where a 
teacher instructs in several closely allied topics, has about 
three classes and keeps his pupils three years. Teachers 
will provide themselves with a liberal education, if exam- 
ining boards require them to have it. Nor will a teacher 
who is truly educated, when he begins his work, be less 
likely to continue so when teaching a few subjects in which 
he is interested and qualified than when going over the 
whole curriculum year after year. A teacher who is cap- 
able of once grasping the nature of a liberal training will 
rarely turn back ; will rarely lose his taste for literature 
or art, for poetry or philosophy or for history ; will rarely 
lose his interest in the welfare of mankind or his sympa- 
thy with its conflicts and aspirations. Though a liberal 
education takes deep root in all the elements of character 



Devoted to Liberal Education. j^ 

and ability, each individual, when life matures, has his 
work to do, his fruit to bear. Moreover, it is only he who 
adopts some special field of investigation or labor who can 
appreciate the labors and the lives of others. 

CONVENIENT NUMBER OF STUDENTS. 

Each section may contain i6, 20 or 24 pupils- 
Each class may contain 32, 40 or 48 

Each grade may contain 96, 120 or 144 



The four lower grades may contain 3S4, 480 or 576 

The fifth grade may contain 128, 160 or 192 

Special students in fifth grade 64, 80 or 96 

Whole number of pupils 576, 720 or S64 

NUMBER OF TEACHERS REQUIRED. 

In each of the lower grades 4 assistants. 

In the four lower grades 16 

In the fifth grade 8 

In the whole institution 8 professors. 

Whole number. 32 teachers. 

ESTIMATE OF ANNUAL EXPENSES. 

Salary of principal $4,000 $4,000 

Salaries of seven professors at 3,000 21,000 

" " eight assistants • at 1,800 14,400 

" " four " at 1,400 5,600 

•' " twelve " at 1,000 12,000 



Total salaries of teachers $57,000 

Salary of secretary $1,000 

Salary of clerk , 800 

Janitor arid servants 2,000 

Coal 1,000 

Water.... .. 500 

Lighting 500 

Printing 2,000 

Stationery items, postage, etc 1,200 9,000 



Total expenses $66,000 



74 Plan of an Institution 



ESTIMATE OF ANNUAL RECEIPTS. 

240 special and fifth-grade students at $160 $38,400 

120 fourth-grade students at 120 14,400 

120 third-grade " at 100 12,000 

120 second-grade " at 80 9,600 

120 first-grade " at 60 7, 200 

Total receipts $8i,6oo- 



APPENDIX. 



Relation of the School to the Home and to 

Society. 

At the beginning of the foregoing sketch the main, 
purpose of the institution was said to be " to secure to any 
boy or girl, between the ages of four and twenty years, an 
education which, being supplemented by the education of 
the home and the world at large, shall be liberal." Al- 
though the aims and the work of a liberal school have 
been amply set Jorth, it is necessary, in order better to 
appreciate the place of the school in the broader, more 
comprehensive and truer education of the whole nature, 
to understand what education we may expect from the 
home and from societ3^ — No doubt much of the complaint 
of the helplessness of recent graduates of schools and col- 
leges is made by those who overlook the true objects of 
life and the purposes of a true education. But there is a 
strong and widespread feeling among those who know most 
of the real value of life and of an education, that our schools 
are not practical in the best sense of the word ; that they 
do not inculcate habits of industry, frugality and modera- 
tion ; that they do not accustom youth to physical activ- 
ity and usefulness, do not prepare them to understand 
human nature and to use their abilities intelligently, eco- 
nomically or honestly ; that they do not cultivate an 
abiding thirst for wisdom and spiritualit}^ a taste for lit- 



7^ Plan of an Institution 

erature, art and science, or a love of nature, poetry and 
philosophy ; that young men and young women learn to 
scorn the homely virtues, the domestic ties and the 
higher moral and spiritual training of the family ; that 
they lose the qualities of charity, hospitality, compassion 
and reverence ; and that they lack that earnestness and 
serious purpose in life which makes home, friends and 
all associations enjoyable and which is zealous in the de- 
fence of the pure and the good, gives courage and ability 
in facing every duty of life and reaches out toward the 
beauty and love of God's kingdom. A liberal institution 
can do much to alleviate the evils thus presented, much 
to prevent a break between the life of the school and 
the after-life and mvich to prepare our youth for com- 
plete living. But the most liberal institution of learn- 
ing is not in itself a unit in the development of a child's 
whole nature. There are only certain things which it can 
do best. The liberal education of a youth requires not 
only a good school, but also a good home and good so- 
ciety. And that child's development will be most com- 
plete where these three elements of his training are co- 
ordinated in the best possible manner. 

Relations between the Home and the School. 

It is the function of the home to provide proper food, 
exercise, recreation, sleep, clothing, and, in general, to 
inculcate hygienic habits. The school can only give 
instruction in the sciences upon which hygienic principles 
are based ; correct habits of study in the school-room 
that are detrimental to health ; lend encouragement to the 
hygienic efforts at home ; secure healthy school-rooms, 
cheerful dispositions, good moral influences and light 



Devoted to Liberal Education. "jj 

physical training in the gymnastic and in the laboratory 
exercises. The habits of neatness, orderliness and sys- 
tematic application are cultivated to as good advantage 
in the home as in the school. Stated and proper hours 
for study should be assigned, that the work required by 
the school may be completed and that the habit of stud}'- 
ing and reading at home may be acquired. Each child 
should have certain appropriate labor to perform daily 
in the home, that he may early learn habits of useful 
industry and frugality and early feel the yoke of duty 
and responsibility. Familiarity with the work of the 
household and with domestic economy ; care for the 
appearance of the home ; taste in the decoration and 
furnishing of its rooms and in the selection of works of 
art for its walls and tables, should form an important 
feature in the home training. Then the virtues of hospi- 
tality, of forgiveness, of forbearance, of sympathy and 
charity are nourished in the home as they cannot be at 
school. The homely virtues — the love of parent, brother, 
and friend, the tender associations of home and kindred — 
are the home's own offspring. Here unconsciousl}" are 
born purity, lowliness and courage. By the fireside is 
most deeply and appropriately instilled that " hunger and 
thirst after righteousness," — is born that spiritual appre- 
hension and love of God " which createth, preserveth and 
restoreth the soul." The best preparation which a boy 
or girl can have for the work of life is in the education of 
the home and the best preparation for a future home is 
under the parents' roof. In the home most of the life 
is spent ; in it centre all our interests and from it spring 
all our hopes. Upon the home training of the child, 
youth and maiden depend the happiness, the blessing 
and the hope of maturer j-ears. 



^8 Plan of an Institution 

The liberal school, therefore, is not an isolated institu-^ 
tion, a boarding-school ; but is so situated and so arranged 
that its students are at home with the exception of five or 
six hours in the day. The liberal school unites with the 
home in a common purpose, and is in the best sense a 
home-school. By such a school is most effectively removed 
the principal ground for the complaint that our schools 
are not practical. There is nothing more anomalous in 
social life than a boys' academy situated in some seques- 
tered spot, except a female seminary. It is possible that a 
boy away at school may make greater progress in his 
studies ; for, being released from some home duties and 
•distractions, he has more time at his disposal. Again, 
lie may sooner learn to shift for himself, and sooner under- 
stand how to deal with human nature, as revealed to him 
in this peculiar community. He will form many valuable 
associations and make many life-long friendships. But 
does the average boy make greater progress in his studies 
away from home than when attending a home-school? 
And if he does, may he not exchange some additional 
intellectual culture for qualities much more valuable? 
Will his release from home duties any better prepare him 
for the duties of the home he maj^ have in after-years? 
Are there not distractions away from home as well as at 
home ; and which class of distractions will he be obliged 
to meet and overcome in after-life, those of the boarding- 
school or those of the home and of society ? Will a boy 
not form many valuable associations and life-long friends 
in a home-school? When away at school will he not ex- 
change the associations of home, family and kindred, of 
neighbors and friends, which he cannot afford to lose, 
for associations of less value? Can a boy afford to ex- 
change the influences of parents, sisters and brothers for 



Devoted to Liberal Education. 79 

those of " chums" ? And will the boy find human nature 
and the world in the isolated school-community more 
like the world he will have to deal with in after-life? 
How little sympathy exists between the boys of an acad- 
emy and the people of the village or town in which it is 
situated ! How difficult for the lad returning from school 
to enter into social or business relations with his neig-h- 
bors! Finally, will a lad who manages his affairs 
awa}^ at school be a better business manager in the end 
than one who, at home, daily watches his father's man- 
agement and is daily instructed by him ? Parents cannot 
afford to lose the influence of their children during the 
period of their greatest development. They cannot af- 
ford to have their children drift away from home nor 
forego the valuable experience of watching and caring for 
a son or daughter during his preparation for college or 
business. And again no parent should trust the moral 
and religious supervision of his child to the fortunes of a 
boarding-school for three fourths of the year. That so 
many do, is because there are few good home-schools, 
because of precedents set in the monkish schools of the 
middle ages and which exist to-day in milder forms in 
England and on the Continent. The great English schools 
and American academies have received their shaping 
from institutions and customs which we would fain shake 
off. Then, too, many parents in the best of circumstances 
seek social distinction, business prosperity, political or 
ecclesiastical advancement, and neglect the noblest of all 
duties — the conscientious, intelligent and liberal educa- 
tion of their children. No more forcible example of the 
want of liberal education can be presented than the con- 
spicuous neglect of proper training among the children 
of the rich. 



8o Plan of an Instittition 

The disadvantages <jf the conventual female seminary 
or boarding-school are inevitably greater than those of the 
boys' academy. There can be comparatively little in such 
a school that will prepare a girl for the home where so 
much of her energy will be spent and of which she will 
be so great a part. There is little in such a community 
that resembles the. society in which she is to move and 
where she is to exert a womanly influence. Health and 
strength and the moral and religious influences of the 
home upon the young girl and maiden, cannot be ex- 
changed for the best intellectual training. While in a 
home-school a complete training of all the powers of 
body, mind and heart is possible. 

An essential feature of a home-school is the presence 
of brothers and sisters, boys and girls, under the influ- 
ences of the same instruction. A mixed school where the 
pupils are away from home is out of the question for sec- 
ondary schools. But there is every reason why those 
who are together in the home, in society and in the 
church should be educated together. The development 
of the mind is then normal, the conditions of the world 
are imitated or fulfilled, the moral tone is higher, each sex 
acts as a wholesome restraint and also as an inspiration upon 
the other. The presence of brothers and sisters, boys 
and girls, in a home-school is not an experiment ; it is the 
universal practice in our public schools — and few are 
better — as well as in the majority of private schools. An- 
other valuable feature in this connection is the presence of 
pupils of all ages from four to twenty years in the same 
school. All the brothers and sisters of a family are thus 
educated together, form the same school associations, 
grow up in mutual helpfulness. The home and liberal 
school would not be complete were the conditions of life 



Devoted to Liberal liducatioii. 8 1 

not fulfilled to this extent. The little child's presence may 
teach the senior of twenty summert more than is culled 
from lexicon or grammar. The oldest sister is a guide and 
tower of strength to her youngest brother. The pride and 
conceit of youth find a homely check in the prattling child. 
Furthermore, a sufficient reason for including the scien- 
tific and classical courses in a liberal institution is found 
in the opportunity afforded to the members of a family, 
who might wish to pursue different courses, to continue 
their education together until the twentieth year. 

Relations between the School and Society. 

Under the age of twenty the principal portion of our 
time and energies is spent in the legitimate work of the 
home and the school. A very small portion belongs to 
society. Children will have their playmates and friends. 
These they find among their schoolmates of the day-school 
and the Sunday-school, and in the families of immediate 
friends and neighbors. After the age of fourteen many warm 
friendships and pleasant acquaintances will be formed. 
Classmates at school are society-mates at home. Evening 
gatherings at parents' homes strengthen the associations 
of the school and form a legitimate recreation amid the 
sterner work of the school. But energy spent during the 
school-life in conventional society is destructive of sound 
education, long life and good morals. 

No institution of learning, be its instruction ever so 
moral and spiritual, can take the place of the church. The 
school unites in its intellectual, moral and religious work 
only the young. The church will ever be the place of 
public worship for the whole family. There grandfather, 
parent and child are united by the bonds of a common 



82 Liberal Edttcation. 

religion. There all the joys and sorrows, hopes and aspi- 
rations, aims and purf»oses, struggles and victories of the 
whole family and of a common people are associated with 
the wealth of divine sympathy. There is felt, as by a 
common heart, the influence of the divine will. There is 
lifted into a common feeling that love which is first pure, 
then peaceful, creating the soul, uniting all in a common 
cause and building up the kingdom of God among men. 
Then, too, the church will claim the right to teach articles 
of faith, which a school, from its very nature, must omit. 

The closest relation between the life of the school and 
the world is the resemblance between the conditions in 
each. The school is a little world and the world a great 
school. In the school-life — in the class-room, on the play- 
ground and at every turn — each pupil is brought in con- 
tact with human nature in manifold forms. By this con- 
tact is learned most practically what human nature is and 
how to deal with it. He who learns to be generous and 
manly in his school-sports and in his school-debates will 
continue so in life. He who learns how to lead and con- 
trol his mates through superiority of will power, or greater 
wisdom and ability, will be a leader among men. He 
who through his pure nature, earnest efforts and high pur- 
poses inspires all his mates to love him and seek a higher 
life, will be God's minister among men. Human nature, 
high and low, is the material with which we have to deal. 
The best preparation for the citizen of a true republic is 
in the republic of a good school. But both the school and 
society are founded in the home. The school without 
the home is no better than a state without the family. The 
home, the school and the state together are the conditions 
of a liberal education. 






L'BRARY OF CONGRESS 

020 774 430 A 












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